


Widow

by blubark



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F, eve is also not maria hill :(, eve is not hawkeye, slowburn for us but the story takes place over like two weeks so actually it's too fast, villanelle is black widow
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-03
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-04-05 22:39:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 44,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19049884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blubark/pseuds/blubark
Summary: SHIELD Agent Eve Polastri hunts down the Black Widow in Paris.





	1. Chapter 1

Augustin Kunkel pokes at his microwaved pasta, trying to bring the boiling mess of the edges into the frozen centre. He sighs, looking around the small kitchen. He’s hunched over the foldout table, his one chair (also foldout) too short for his six-foot frame. He feels like a giant in this house.

There’s a noise from somewhere outside the room, and he sighs, waiting for next-doors music to start.

He lowers his attention back to his food, taking a tentative bite and swearing as it burns his tongue. He puts his fork down, turning in the chair to pour himself a glass of water from the sink. When he turns back, there’s a woman standing in the doorway. He drops the glass, and it cracks, splashing water over his socks.

The woman follows the glass with flat eyes.

‘Who are you?’ he says, standing.

‘This is a very small apartment,’ the woman says, glancing over the room. ‘You must get paid like shit.’ She takes a step forwards, and he notices for the first time she’s carrying a stuffed toy, a little lion, clenched in her fist.

‘Who are you?’ Augustin says again. He picks up the fork, squares his shoulders.

The woman continues as if she hadn’t heard. ‘If you did it all for money, I would understand. But this is very sad.’

‘Who are you?’ he shouts.

‘I don’t really know,’ the woman says, cheerful.

Augustin hadn’t expected that answer, and he pauses. ‘What do you want?’

She tilts her head. ‘I’m here to kill you.’

Augustin swallows. ‘Widow?’

She shrugs, playing with the fur of the lion’s mane. ‘I don’t really like the name, you know? Never married.’

He takes a step back, hissing in pain as a piece of glass pierces his heel. ‘I have money.’

The Widow laughs and gestures around the room. ‘Not enough to pay me off, I think.’

‘I can tell you whatever you want to know.’ Augustin can feel the bench digging into his back, reaches behind himself for the knife block.

‘You will.’

‘You don’t have to kill me.’

‘No,’ she smiles. ‘I don’t.’

 

...

 

He chokes to death on the toy, and she watches him in satisfaction. The lion’s tail sticks out of his mouth with his tongue, the body of it rammed deep down his throat. She’d been prepared to have to shove it down post-death, but this is better. He’s spoiled a little bit by breaking that glass (he has shards embedded in his arse), and then by biting her hand, so it’s not quite as bloodless as she was going for, and her nice pants have a tear in them now, but perfection can be achieved with the next one. She’ll be more careful.

He has nice blue eyes that don’t waver from hers, as though he’s hoping she’ll change her mind last second. There’s so often a struggle to get people to look at her, in moments like this. She’s got her hands loosely wrapped around the rope between his wrists, but the real fight had gone out of him about a minute ago – she’s just waiting now.  

When he’s definitely dead, she inspects her hand, bleeding from the long scrapes he’d left with his teeth. It’s not bad, a mild sting, nothing in comparison to him being dead.

‘If you give me rabies, I will be very upset,’ Villanelle says to his corpse, washing her hand in the sink. She turns to his table, picking up the frozen meal and sniffing it, poking a finger in and tasting. She pulls a face.

‘You really were sad,’ she says to him, putting it back on the table, and leaving the apartment.

 

…

 

‘Looks like we’ve got another Widow kill. Maybe.’

Eve jerks her head up out of her hands, blinking away the sleep in her eyes. ‘What?’

‘Are you asleep?’ Bill folds his arms. ‘Wasn’t this your dream job, or something?’

Eve pushes herself away from the computer, chair rolling back a little further than intended so that she has to drag it forwards again. ‘Sorry, I just – stayed up late last night with the last one.’ She grabs a notepad and pen and stands.

Bill tuts. ‘I’ll send the cleaner in, shall I?’

Eve looks down to see the crumbs of last nights meal – chips and a cookie from the vending machine on the floor around her. She brushes a few more off her top, and sighs. ‘It’s been a long night.’

‘You should have gone home.’ Bill sizes her up. ‘Should I start getting Keiko to cook two dinners?’

Eve meets his gaze, smiling. ‘Niko would do it if I ever, you know, went home and told him I had to work late.’ She shakes her head. ‘Anyway, what happened?’

‘You’ll see,’ Bill says, grim. He motions for her to follow, ducking back out into the corridor. The blue carpet takes on a more vibrant hue out from under her shitty old light bulb, the white walls clearing her head as her own small office with its gruesome pictures couldn’t.

The gruesome pictures that were starting to run out of room to fit, the dates getting closer and closer together. The woman behind the murders, however, seemed no closer to being found, like smoke, like a ghost story. In the centre of it all, directly behind her computer, Eve has a sketch artist’s rendering of the Widow, brown eyes set far apart in an oval face, full lips, button nose, and long red hair. The description had been provided by the cleaner of one of the Widow’s victims, who had seen the woman from her car as the Widow left the crime scene.

‘She’s been weirdly active – ‘

‘If it is her.’

‘Who’s saying it’s not?’

‘Frank thinks the Widow is a myth, now. That it’s multiple murderers.’ Bill rolls his eyes. 

‘He’s just shitty they closed down the Winter Soldier taskforce,’ Eve says.

‘Well, be prepared,’ Bill says with a straight face before pausing and laughing. ‘Almost ruined the surprise.’

‘What?’ Eve stops in the hallway, turning her head towards Bill. ‘They can’t shut us down.’

‘What have we done, Eve? She’s only become _more_ active, and we’ve got nothing.’ Bill starts down the corridor, and Eve rushes to keep up.

‘That’s not true! We know, um, her height, kind of, we know she’s Russian, for sure, we know she’s a real human woman.’ Eve grab Bill’s arm. ‘Hey, I’m serious.’

‘So am I.’ Bill watches another agent amble by, more concerned with their cup of coffee than the fight happening in the corridor. ‘Look, Eve, I don’t know what’s happening, or why, but just, we might not have much longer to find her. Especially with her not having killed anyone on our side for over a year.’ Bill sets off again.

‘So, what, she needs to kill more people we like for anyone to care?’

‘Yes. Obviously.’ Bill turns and frowns at her, before opening the door to his left and ushering Eve through a door to where the rest of the team are sitting looking at their phones. ‘Alright, everyone. Ready for the latest kill?’

Eve takes a chair next to Elena, who’s tucking her cell away into her pocket. The room is fairly dingy by SHIELD standards, and the chairs are old enough and uncomfortable enough to have been made by the Spanish Inquisition.

Bill clears his through. ‘OK. So, the Widow has killed again, shocking. In Paris, again. German man, Augustin Kunkel.’ Bill clicks through, the projector screen still dark. There’s a brief intermission as Kenny goes to help, before a picture of Mr Gunkel, blue in the face, throat bulging at an unnatural angle, shoots up onto the wall.

‘Jesus, give us a warning, yeah?’ Elena says, putting a hand up to block the sight of his bloated tongue.

Bill clicks back to a photo of the man before death, looking somewhat grim and brooding. ‘There.’

‘She claimed it?’

Bill clicks forward to a post-in note, held between gloved fingers. It just reads _Be prepared_ _– W._ ‘Found in his mouth. Laminated.’

Elena makes a noise, while Eve leans forwards, studying the elegant handwriting. She has a hundred and six examples of it on her computer, the long elegant script speaking of calligraphy training, the wit and weirdness of the messages speaking of someone trying to have fun.

‘That’s not like her,’ Eve says.

‘Not her handwriting?’ Bill turns to look at the wall behind him.

‘No, I mean, it’s too serious. Too… threatening.’

Bill puts a hand to his face, stroking over his stubble. ‘I thought so. But then I wondered if perhaps it’s not somehow a joke at our expense? That we’re not ready in some way?’

‘The last one was “He couldn’t hack it” when she beat him to death with a computer. We’ve never gotten a note that’s suggested past or future.’

‘Well, if we ever find her be sure to let her know that her sense of humour is deteriorating.’

Elena sighs and reaches into her purse.

‘What are you doing?’ Bill says as she turns and gives a note to Kenny, who smiles smugly.

‘I bet that the next kill would be funnier than the last one.’ Elena sighs. ‘She’s been on a real roll lately.’

‘Hakuna Matata would have been funnier,’ Eve offers, and Elena laughs.

‘We’re not giving reviews to Ellen DeGeneres, everyone,’ Bill says, before pausing. ‘The best one was “his head wouldn’t fit”.’

‘Jesus,’ Elena wrinkles her nose. ‘That one was savage.’

‘Anyway, _this_ is Augustin Kunkel was a German, based in Paris. Linked somewhat tenuously to her previous victim, Arthur Belanger, the sex trafficker. In that they sometimes played poker together, kids in school together, nothing indicative of being a criminal. Linked somewhat more closely to SHIELD, in that he used to be in the payroll department, and was paid to keep an eye on Kunkel when we found out they were in the same circles.’

‘Belanger had ties to the KGB though?’ Eve said.

‘Can’t find anything like that on Kunkel.’

‘But then, why would the Widow kill him?’

‘Because he’s SHIELD?’ Elena cuts in.

‘No. Look, she’s only been going after KGB agents. I keep telling you – ‘

‘She must have defected. Except we don’t have a hit on her from the KGB. It’s more likely to be a power play, and whoever has her, has the upper hand.’ Bill sighed, shutting off the PowerPoint. ‘Just keep working the angles. If she’s staying in Paris, we need a list of the KGB agents she’s likely to have a go at killing, and we just keep getting closer that way.’

‘So, what was the toy?’ Eve says, scribbling on her pad.

‘Something from _The Lion King._ ’ Bill looks down at his notes. ‘Scar.’

‘Why _that_ toy?’

Bill shrugs. ‘Maybe it was just what they had.’

Eve purses her lips. ‘No. That’s… Scar – wasn’t he the bad guy?’

Elena snorts. ‘Uh, yeah? What, did you seriously never watch _The Lion King_?’

‘I did. Once.’

‘It was like, my childhood.’ Understanding dawns on Elena’s face. ‘Ah right, your childhood was _Snow White_?’

Eve tosses a pencil in Elena’s direction, and Elena laughs, clear and high.

‘Sorry,’ Elena says.

Eve waves her off, turning back to study the murder scene, the note. Bill wraps up the meeting with some bullshit about how the Widow’s apparent love of Paris could help them in the long run, and she shuts her notebook, grabbing the print-out of the man’s body for her files. 

After a brief chat to Elena, she shuts herself back in her office, the dingy one at the back of their shared space. Well. It shouldn’t be dingy, strictly speaking, having been claimed for the fact it had the second-best view. But she’d been keeping the curtains closed lately, to focus less on the passage of time and more on her work.

She waggled the mouse a few times, frowning as it crunched over some more crumbs.

‘Did I not eat any of this dumb cookie?’ Eve mutters, putting the mouse on top of the keyboard and lifting both to sweep over her desk with her shirt sleeve. Cleaning complete, she turns her attention back to the computer. She had three emails – two staff-wide memos and one from Bill with the crime-scene photos.

She clicks on the note first, _Be prepared – W_. Opens up YouTube to listen to the song in question, watching the cartoon hyena’s goosestep across the screen. She writes down _Nazis_ on her pad, crosses it out because she’s not in an Indiana Jones movie. Rewrites it because, oh right, Nazis are back. Wouldn’t that be a treat, the Widow hunting down neo-Nazis. Eve wouldn’t stop her.

Other than that, she’s not sure what to get from the song. It _feels_ important, a threat, a warning, in a way that the Widow has never communicated before.

Bill thinks she’s looking too deeply into things. He’d said the same, when she’d theorised that the body of the thin KBG man with his face done up in blue paint and his head three feet from his body meant the Widow had defected. The note had read _Freedom!! – W._

‘We don’t even know who the Widow is sending these notes for,’ Bill had said, frustration written in the lines of his shoulders.

He’s right, every corpse hasn’t been attended to by SHIELD. But during year one Kenny had somehow managed to stumble onto an archive of Widow kills, the tangled webs of the uploader too difficult to unravel (‘She’s pretty good at this,’ Kenny said; ‘Better than you,’ Elena said). The pictures had started eight years ago with a simple _Widow_ , a shot to the head. She’d started getting more and more creative in her kills, and with it, the notes had become funny. Well, Eve never says funny, of course, not outside the task-force. She says, creative, morbidly witty, evidence of intelligence. Evidence that someone is letting her have free reign.

She marks the timeline, the course of the Widow’s growing, by the notes – _Widow,_ which spans the first year, the fifteen kills neat and simple, the pictures front-on, generally getting in the body and the background. _Widow was here_ , which marks the second and third years, the claiming, the different ways of writing her name: _I’m here – W, I matter – W_ , pictures generally focused on the wounds she’d caused, making identification of some victims difficult _._ The fourth year, she’d gotten her very own taskforce, and somehow, she found out. _I’m flattered – W_ (the man had been crushed to death by an industrial press, which Eve now thought was a rather heavy-handed pun, but at the time she just remembers being excited), marking out the next three years of attention-seeking, fun kills, the kind of creativity that most people would channel to art. She’d even put filters on some of the photos, a careful framing, notes with exclamation points and some with kisses, taking care to include the faces of victims (where possible), and names where not.

After _Freedom!!_ eighteen months ago, there’s only been a ramp up, a kind of mania, notes lacking some of the vibrancy, as though the fun is secondary. Bill doesn’t agree, fine, but he lets her organise the folders so as far as everyone else is concerned, Eve’s theory is the one they all keep circling.

And now _Be prepared._ Eve taps her pen to her mouth, staring at it. It feels like there needs to be an exclamation mark, right, for it to be sarcastic? For it to be fun. As it stands…

Perhaps this is the beginning of another chapter.

 

...

 

‘I want to go to Paris,’ Eve says.

Bill doesn’t even look up from his coffee. He’s drinking it on their couch, in the middle of the shared office space where Elena and Kenny have their desks. Both of them are looking at their computers in a way that suggests they are actually not looking at their computers.

‘Bill?’

‘I’m trying to find a creative new way to say no,’ Bill says. He does look up now, bags under his eyes.

‘Bill – ’

‘No.’ He smiles. ‘Why part with an old classic?’

‘Bill. We haven’t had the opportunity to visit a crime scene in years, and – ’

‘How do you know we’re allowed to visit the crime scene?’

‘I have a phone and a badge.’

Bill scoffs. ‘Right.’

‘We have the budget, it’s just sitting there waiting for us to call in help.’

‘Yes, of the SO19 variety, not _you_.’

‘The last four kills have been in Paris. She might still be there.’

‘Or she might not.’

Eve shakes her head. ‘It’s like you don’t want to find her.’

Bill stands now, face hard. ‘You know that’s not true.’ He glances at Kenny, who is determinedly staring at his computer. ‘It’s just hard, with the Winter Soldier branch shutting down, to justify it.’

Eve presses on. ‘That’s exactly why we have to take these chances. We can’t keep rely on week old tips and half-remembered, vague descriptions.’

Bill stares at her, narrows his eyes. ‘Fine. Fine. You can go for a week.’

‘But – ‘ Eve pauses. ‘Wait, really?’

‘Yes, really.’ Bill shakes his head, picking up his cup of coffee and walking towards his office. ‘God knows you need some time out of the office.’

It stings more than it should.

 

...

 

‘Paris?’ Niko helps her pack, gently folding the underwear she flings at the suitcase and placing them in her case. ‘What’s in Paris?’

‘Hopefully, the Widow,’ Eve says, holding up two coats, deciding to go with the dark grey.

‘Well, I hope not,’ Niko says, still packing the case.

‘Yeah, well, would be better for my job if she were.’

‘What’s that mean?’

Eve pauses, holding up one pair of jeans and then another, trying to remember which pair she’d washed last. ‘Oh, Frank’s department was shut down and Bill thinks we’re next.’

‘Are you worried?’

Eve pauses in her sniff-test of the jeans, looking at Niko. His brows are wrinkled, mouth turned down.

‘I don’t know. I think we have a much stronger case for staying open that Frank did. And I like my job.’

‘It might be nice to have you home more.’

Eve laughs. ‘You’d get sick of me.’ She turns her attention back to the jeans, glancing at Niko out the corner of her eye. She feels embarrassed, hopes she looks more coy.

‘Eve. I wouldn’t.’ Niko makes a movement like he’s going to come over, but he stays on the bed, folded bra still in his hands. ‘I miss you when you’re not here.’

Eve shifts, dropping her gaze. ‘It’s just… she’s been very active.’

‘I know. But it just keeps piling on, doesn’t it? And you’re no closer.’

‘So what, we’re bad at our jobs, now?’ She dumps one pair of the jeans back into the drawer, not quite managing to hide her anger.

‘No, I meant, putting in more time isn’t helping. Them asking you to stay later isn’t helping.’ He sounds like he’s trying to keep frustration out of his voice, and she wants to tell him he’s failing, just like her.

‘Well, it might this time.’ She turns away, so he can’t see her face twisting in guilt. He sighs, and she hears him stand.

‘I’m sorry. I’m just – I just do miss you.’ He hugs her from behind, and she lifts a hand to his face, tracing a finger down his cheek. He kisses the top of her head, lets go.

‘I’ll start dinner.’

‘I’ll be down in a minute to help.’

‘OK. Love you.’

‘Love you too.’

She turns and sits on the bed when he leaves, staring at the clothes in the case. She wonders what the Widow wears, whether she has a suitcase somewhere in Paris filled with black catsuits and balaclavas, or jeans and t-shirts.

Whether she has someone nagging her about spending too much time at work.

She sighs, and heads downstairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK so this is an AU where Villanelle is the Black Widow, Eve is a rando SHIELD agent, the Winter Soldier is only mentioned to give everyone a reason to know and hate Frank. 
> 
> Carolyn is not Fury, but she could be if she wanted to. 
> 
> It's a dumb idea, but it's my dumb idea so I'm writing it. 
> 
> chillinglikeavillanelle.tumblr.com, come talk to me.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eve investigates, Villanelle watches.

The hotel they’ve put her up in is shitty, a single room with a cut out that hosts the kettle, an old, lumpy double bed, and a small bathroom. It’s overwhelmingly pastel green, the walls, the curtains, the pillowcases. The carpet, meanwhile, is a grey that suggests it might once have also been green.

She opens the door to the bathroom, dialling Niko.

‘Hi,’ he says, picking up on the first ring. ‘Made it alright, then?’

‘Yeah. The toilet is green.’

‘Oh, uh, by design, I hope?’

Eve closes the toilet door, sitting on the bed. ‘I know I shouldn’t complain but this is our month backpacking levels of crappy places.’ She intends it as a joke, but it falls flat, coming out like a dig. They haven’t been on a trip for more than a long weekend since then.

‘I remember that trip quite fondly.’ Niko sounds put out.

‘Yeah, it was good. But the hotels…’

‘Well, anyway, I guess I better leave you to your luxury suite.’

Eve laughs, because she thinks it’s expected, and says goodbye, feeling a small knot of _something_ ease as soon as she’s not listening to his voice anymore.

She takes her hair tie out, shaking out her hair and laying down on the bed.

At least the ceiling is white.

 

…

 

Villanelle is bored.

Not new, not unusual, but still uncomfortable. 

She chastises herself again, for killing Augustin in his house. She should have done it somewhere with a café close by, or a park, somewhere she could just sit and be inconspicuous. But no. Not once she knew how she wanted to do it.

So instead she’s broken into an attic across the street. The man downstairs is old and thus presumably deaf. She’s been wrong about such things before but never in a way that matters. She supposes she could kill him, but she’s got a theme going on now, doesn’t want to muddy the waters.

The attic is stuffy, and dusty, and she’s already flicked through all the old family albums and the record collection, which just leaves the Agatha Christie books.

She picks one up, reading the blurb.

They probably won’t show. They didn’t for the others, and they won’t here, either.

She’s about twenty pages into  _Death in the Clouds_ (she wonders how satisfying it would be to see someone die from wasp stings), when she sees her. An Asian woman, hair tied up tight in a bun, being led by a policeman. She's the spitting image of her work photo at the moment, hair scraped back, face almost bored. 

Eve Polastri.

Villanelle grins, pressing her nose against the window and watching as she walks up the street. They’re here. She hadn’t expected the task-force, expected a SHIELD team with some field experience. She’d only seen them twice in all her travels, only seen Bill.

When she’d first found out about the task force, she’d been excited, pestering Konstantin until he’d supplied her with staff photos, Bill Pargrave, Eve Polastri, Rachel Lee, and Kenny Stowten. Elena Felton had joined later, after Rachel Lee had left.

(‘I don’t know what she’s doing,’ Konstantin had said, doing a big exaggerated shrug.

‘What job could be more interesting than finding _me_?’ Villanelle snapped.

Konstantin raised his eyebrows. ‘I don’t know,’ he said.

‘I should kill her.’

‘Well, I’m sure she regrets leaving,’ Konstantin said. ‘Maybe it’s not necessary?’

‘Mm. Maybe.’ She pursed her lips. ‘Fine. I will be the bigger person.’

Konstantin smiled. ‘You are very generous.’)

The taskforce had mostly proved a disappointment, always too slow, never a challenge. But it was nice to know someone, somewhere, was noticing, and she liked to imagine they were happy to look.

Now she knew.

She steals back downstairs, footsteps light and quiet, the radio blaring in the sitting room less so, and back out the door onto the street. Keeping an eye on the house Eve’s entered, she grabs the letters sticking out the top of the mans letterbox stuck onto his wall, and dawdles down to the end of the street and back, repeating when they haven’t emerged.

After ten minutes, she pauses at the street corner, leaning against the railing. She's not sure what's taking them so long, with the flat already cleaned. She sighs, checks her watch, and is contemplating screaming to draw them out when Eve steps out the front door. Villanelle pauses a moment longer before walking up the street towards them, head tilted down towards the letter as though reading the address.

Eve Polastri’s face is excited – she can see her gesturing, hands waving through the air as she talks to the policeman. Villanelle keeps back, making a show of reading the numbers on the street, looking at the letter. A woman walks out of the alleyway ahead with her dog – a poodle, ridiculously cliched – and stops in front of Villanelle.

‘Do you need help?’ the woman says in French. Her tone is anything but helpful, and Villanelle sighs inwardly. The dog snuffles at her feet and Villanelle draws her foot back too late to avoid a speck of slobber on the toe. 

‘Non,’ she replies. ‘Merci,’ she adds, after a moment, smoothing her disgust into a smile. 

‘I know this street, if you can’t find the house,’ the woman says.

Villanelle takes a step to the side to watch Eve out the corner of her eyes. The woman is still talking to the policeman, hands still waving as though conducting an orchestra.

‘Are you meant to be here?’

Villanelle looks back at the woman, pulls a face. ‘Excusez-moi?’

‘I’ve never seen you before, and you're behaving... oddly.’ The woman frowns.

‘I am scared. I am on the murder street with a stranger,’ Villanelle says dismissively, looking back towards Eve.

The woman's frown melts into a sympathetic downturn of her mouth. ‘Je suis desole,’ she says. ‘I suppose I’m scared too.’

Villanelle presses her lips together, watching the way the woman settles into this chat, this meeting of like minds in the street, this interesting anecdote she can give her book club later over twenty-dollar bottles of wine.

She looks back over at Eve, and then.

And then.

Eve takes down her hair.

‘It’s just so shocking,’ the woman says in the background.

Eve shakes out her hair, running her fingers through it, fingers tangling in the long, thick, curly locks, breeze sweeping strands from her face. She still has an excitement on her face, eyes wide, mouth twitching as though to keep from smiling, and Villanelle knows, _knows_ , this look is for her, for her kills and her mind. The admiration and the excitement, all for her.

‘Are you OK?’ the woman says, turning her head to look at whatever Villanelle is looking at.

‘Ouais,’ Villanelle says, pushing past the woman to get a better look up the street at the way Eve moves, the way Eve talks, the way Eve’s hair exists like a gift. The woman splutters behind her but she doesn't pay attention to anything but the faint sound of Eve, still talking. 

She’s not careful, getting far too close before she realises she needs to be looking at the letter. She stuffs it in a letterbox across from Eve, then pulls out her phone as if texting, snapping a photo from the hip.

Maybe the task-force is not so disappointing, after all.

 

…

 

‘I just can’t believe the neighbours didn’t hear anything. Those walls are so thin,’ Eve says, scratching at her scalp.

The officer, Marius Paget, shakes his head, almost bored. ‘As I said. Nobody heard or saw anything.’

‘It’s just amazing, how brutal and careful someone can be,’ Eve says, waving her hands to encompass the flat.

‘Amazing?’ Marius wrinkles his brow. ‘I thought this meant something else?’

‘Amazing in an awful way,’ Eve says.

He nods, in that deliberate, careful way she knows so well, where people are trying not to show her they think she’s strange. ‘Would you like me to take you back to your hotel?’

‘Merci,’ she says, grimacing at her accent. Niko is relatively good with languages. She remembers last time they were here, she’d let him do the talking, marvelling at his short conversations in French, Italian, Spanish.

‘How do you keep it all straight?’ she’d whispered in bed one night. They’d been face-to-face, no choice but to touch with the way the bed sagged towards the middle.

‘It’s easy to fool American’s into thinking you know more language than you do.’ he’d said, voice taking on a teasing tone.

‘Hey.’ She’d poked him in the side – he’d laugh. ‘That’s the greatest country in the world you’re talking about.’

‘Ah sorry. I forgot how shit Paris is.’

She gets in the car with the police officer, a slight smile on her face as she buckles into the passenger seat.

There’s a young woman standing just up the street, back turned to Eve, looking intently down at what Eve would guess is her mobile phone. Further up, an older woman with a poodle is staring at her. The younger woman looks up, and Eve can see her shoulders heave in a huge sigh before she raises her hand to flip the older woman off.

The older woman gasps, and tries to flag down the police car as Marius pulls away from the curb.

‘We did not see anything,’ he says, making a show of checking his side mirrors. ‘She has been a real pain, everybody is a suspect. She would say that woman did it.’

Eve cranes her head back, but the young woman has already disappeared, and the older woman is just staring after the police car, phone pressed to her ear.

‘Looks like she’s gonna complain,’ Eve says.

‘I’m very surprised,’ Marius says, with a slight smile.

 

…

 

She decides to head out for dinner, not keen on spending any longer than she has to in the green room. She shuts her laptop, tucking the photos away in her collection of manilla folders, just in case a cleaning lady wanders in and doesn’t want to see dead bodies.

Shrugging into her heavy jacket, she shakes her hair out and heads into the wide world.

She dawdles a little on her way down into the Metro, taking in the sights. Her and Niko hadn’t come out this way, hanging only in the city centre. She wonders how it will have changed.

She heads down the stairs, reassures herself she’s in the right place, and then digs her phone out on the platform, flicking through the news, not really paying attention. _Be prepared_. _Be prepared. Be –_

‘Excuse moi?’ a bad French accent says.

Eve startles out of her thoughts, snatching her phone back into her chest. She looks up to see a young woman, tall, beautiful, smiling down at her with a faintly embarrassed slant in her eyebrows. Her hair is straight, honey-coloured, and her clothes appear to cost more than Eve’s entire wardrobe, a deep green coat pulled over the top. Eve thinks her hotel room would look much better if it was this colour.

‘Bonjour?’ the woman tries at Eve’s silence. It comes out as ‘bon-jaw’.

‘No Francais. Hello?’ Eve says.

‘Oh, English?’ The woman widens her smile. ‘I just wondered, do you have the time?’ She has a posh British accent, mouth shaping around the words clearly, making her easy to understand in the packed, noisy station.

‘Uh, sure. Three thirty.’ Eve glances at her phone lock screen, gives a tight smile.

‘Thank you so much! And thanks from saving me from mangling more French.’ The woman cranes her neck, to look past Eve at the schedule on the screen. Her body is close to Eve’s, just on the other side of the commonly accepted personal bubble. Eve presses herself further into the pillar to maintain distance, trying to ignore how good the woman’s perfume smells. ‘What brings you to Paris?’ The woman leans next to Eve, back out of her space.

‘Uh, business,’ Eve says. She tucks her phone back into her pocket.

‘Alone?’ The woman tilts her head to the side, eyes roaming Eve’s face.

‘Yes,’ Eve says. She casts around for something to follow up with, when the other woman speaks.

‘You’re too beautiful to be here alone.’ The woman says this simply, as though it’s fact, staring Eve dead in the eyes. She has hazel eyes, bright and clear in the light.

Eve blinks, feeling heat rushing into her cheeks. She feels a little lightheaded at the sudden focus, the feeling she’s the only person in the world – the feeling she’s attractive. ‘Uh, well, I have – I have a husband,’ Eve says, hating the way she sounds almost apologetic. She breaks eye contact, glancing down to the woman’s jaw, her lips, the way she shapes her words.

‘And he let you come to Paris alone? Idiot.’ The young woman leans in again, bending her head to be on a level with Eve. Eve can feel her breath tickling her ear. ‘Perhaps you’ll find someone better here.’

‘Oh, I’m not looking for – uh, thank you though.’ Eve leans back, trying to ignore the way her breath has caught in her throat.

‘Not looking for anyone?’ The woman leans back, raises her eyebrows. Eve can hear the train start to come through the tunnel. ‘I must have the wrong person then.’

Eve frowns. ‘Who were you looking for?’ She has to raise her voice over the sound of the train braking.

The woman smiles, slow, lips peeling back to show her teeth, but no humour. ‘Well, here’s your ride, I think. I’ll see you later.’ The woman takes a step back, and waves as she turns away.

Eve cranes her neck to try following the woman’s passage through the station, but loses her in the throng. A sense of dread crawls down her throat, lodging in her chest.

 

…

 

Bill laughs down the phone at her. ‘You’ve been in Paris thirty seconds, Eve.’

‘No, Bill, of course it was her. Why would a random woman come and flirt with me?’ She’s trying to whisper, to not let the people pressed into her on the train overhear, but the man on her left catches her eye and smirks. She turns away from him, faces inches from a woman’s shoulder instead.

Bill huffs, and Eve takes the phone from her ear at the rush off static. When she puts it back Bill is saying, ‘You’re hardly an unattractive woman Eve, maybe she just has eyes?’

Eve pauses. ‘Seriously? You think that’s a normal encounter?’

She can almost hear him shrug. ‘I’m not denying it wasn’t gutsy of her, but I hardly think it’s suspicious.’

‘Look, just, get Kenny to have a look. Please.’

Bill agrees, and she’s left to stew on the train, which just seems to be filling with more people. She misses her stop, zoned out, gets off at the platform to double back.

This station is quieter, and although she’s pretty sure the Widow didn’t follow her, it’s a stupid relief when the train comes to take her back where she was going.

Bill calls back just as she boards. ‘We have a photo.’

‘And doesn’t it look like the sketch?’

‘Not at all, and you _know_ that.’  

‘She’s the _Widow_ , Bill.’

‘She didn’t hide her face on the CCTV, we’ve got her dead to rights. Doesn’t that sound reckless to you?’

‘Doesn’t this whole thing sound reckless?’

‘Look, Eve, you’re being paranoid. Maybe you should come back.’

Eve chews her lip. ‘OK, alright, I’m sorry. Just the – ’

‘You wanted it to be her,’ Bill says.

Eve laughs. ‘Oh, sure, I’m dying to be hit on by a serial killer.’

Bill doesn’t laugh, and an uncomfortable silence drags on.

‘Uh, well, I’ll just – try new leads.’

‘Oh, do you have those?’ Bill sounds surprised, the asshole.

‘I’ll try and get new ones, then.’

‘That’s the stuff.’

God, she hates him sometimes.

 

_Can you send me the information on that woman?_ She texts Kenny as she gets off the train.

_The not-Widow?_

_Yes._

_Why?_

_Who’s the boss?_ She waits for a Tony Danza joke to show he’s been telling Elena about the exchange.

_Right._

Kenny sends her an email a few minutes later, and she soon has the woman’s passport photo on her phone. She doesn’t look anything like the sketch, except perhaps that they’re both women. She doesn’t know why she said that to Bill – it just made her look desperate.

Faith Darby – 28. She’s in the right age range, the right height and build and race, based on all the rumours they have. She’s been in Paris for three weeks, which would be enough time to get everything set up, and have a fun day trip to murder the guy in Amsterdam eighteen days ago.

Eve stares at the photo, remembering Faith at the train station, her confident air, her piercing gaze, and feels hot with panic, with –

She puts the photo carefully in the folder, lying down on the bed at staring at the ceiling.

‘It’s not her,’ she says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another chapter for you all - next one will be up ASAP.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eve is on Faith's tail, Villanelle plays games.

Eve gets up early the next morning, starts to put her hair up before leaving it down to help the sunglasses hide her face, and sets off to spy on Faith’s hotel. It’s out in Villemomble, an hour and a half away by public transport from where Eve is staying in Saint-Cloud, linked by two trains and a tram.

She ends up sandwiched against a corner, a woman in a pantsuit dozing next to her.

She tries to think of something other than the Widow, of Faith, but she can’t. If she closes her eyes, she can see every stitch in her jacket, can still smell her perfume. She had long fingers, and Eve imagines them wrapped around a neck, squeezing, knuckles whitening with the pressure. She imagines them gripping a knife, casual, a finger reaching out to stroke the edge. She imagines them slipping down over the material of that green coat.

She shifts, her excitement so palpable she can taste it on her tongue.

The Widow had reached out to Eve, and she’d flirted. She didn’t want to kill Eve, but to talk to her, test her.

What did that mean?

 

The hotel isn’t what she would have expected for an international assassin, a shapeless brown building sandwiched between a convenience store and a sandwich store. There’s a little café across the dual lane street, and she takes a table outside, doodling on her notepad and waiting.

She’s managed to drink three cups of coffee and eat two croissants by the time she sees Faith – the Widow – come back to the hotel at around nine. She slumps down into her chair, pushing her sunglasses back over her face. The Widow is still wearing the green coat, wrapped tight around her body. She appears to be limping ever so slightly, jaw set as she struggles with the door before someone from the inside comes out and she bumps them on her way through.

Eve bites her lip, wondering how hurt she is if she can’t manage doors.

Eve pulls out her cell phone, trying to get another picture, to see if she can spot something, some discrepancy perhaps between passport and real life, but her zoom is so shit she might as well have taken a photo of Bigfoot. She stares at the photo anyway, the green standing out against the dull background.

The waiter bustles around, clearing her cup again, and she nods when he asks if she would like another.

She writes notes down as she flicks through her drive, trying to group notes and kills by themes, which goes nowhere. She’s staring at the chorus lyrics of _Barbie Girl_ , written for a woman suffocated with a plastic bag, when her phone vibrates.

She picks up. ‘Hey, Bill.’

‘There’s been another kill. Paris, so you were right. Carolyn’s got you access to go to the scene. Did you give Officer Paget your number? He’ll be the one to take you.’

‘When?’ Eve says, sitting upright. Her shoulders protest, and she rubs at her neck.

‘As soon as he can get there, I would assume.’

‘No, when was the murder?’ Eve says, just as the waiter puts her coffee down in front of her. He looks startled, then nods at her and walks off.

‘Oh. Last night.’

‘Faith was out all night,’ Eve says, voice low. ‘She didn’t come back until nine.’

Bill chokes on something. ‘Oh my god, Eve. Are you stalking her?’

‘No, I’m – ’

“That poor girl is going to want to U-Haul with you if she knows how tragic you are.’

‘Bill, I’m serious.’

‘So am I.’ He sighs. ‘I’ll send you the crime scene photos. Please don’t confront any innocent women today.’

‘I won’t, because she’s not innocent.’ Bill hangs up before she can finish the sentence.

The email has already come through, and she flicks through the photos. Johann Holtz, thirty-five, hung from the ceiling with a skipping rope. The notes reads: _In Soviet Russia, rope skips you – W._ It’s a surprise.

Eve’s phone vibrates. It’s Elena. _Just won my twenty quid back_. _Looks like her sense of humour is back._

Eve flicks a message to Marius, asking for a pickup, and orders a cup of tea.

 

…

 

Villanelle peels her shirt off, gritting her teeth against the pain. The man had managed to get a good punch in on her ribs, his flailing, untrained fighting causing her to laugh too hard to defend.

She would have been punished for that lack of concentration, in the Red Room. Had been. She grins at herself in the mirror above the shitty sink, eyes flicking down to the blue licking across her ribs.

‘Poor darling,’ she says. She runs a fingertip over the bruise. She wonders if Eve would help her, hold ice to her ribs, tell her to be careful. She grins at that too, the woman across the street trying to blend it, with her gorgeous hair down like anyone wouldn’t look at it. Maybe she should go ask her for help.

Her phone rings in her back pocket, and she fishes it out, places in on the counter and presses the green button with her pinky.

‘Hello?’ Konstantin says after a moment of silence.

‘You have reached the voicemail of someone who does not care what you have to say today,’ Villanelle says, twisting to see if the bruise extends towards her spine.

Konstantin sighs. He’s always sighing at her. ‘Don’t be rude. How’s Canada?’

‘Very cold,’ Villanelle says. ‘I was just thinking how upset I am not to be able to wear bikinis.’

‘I hear Paris is nice this time of year.’

Villanelle snorts. ‘You know I’m not a fan of Paris anymore.’

‘Have you been mailing dead people there, then?’ Konstantin sounds fed up, and Villanelle rolls her eyes.

‘Copycats are everywhere,’ she says.

‘You are playing a dangerous game, Villanelle. People smarter and more dangerous than you will find you.’

‘Like who?’

Konstantin sighs, again. ‘I don’t know. Many people. Raymond.’

Villanelle laughs. ‘Raymond is not smarter than me, and the only thing he’s more dangerous than me in is a doughnut-eating competition.’ She hums. ‘No, I could probably beat him in that, too.’ She spreads her hand over the bruise, trying to get a feel for its size in case she needs to cover it for sex later.

‘You need to be more careful. You are attracting a lot of attention – ‘

‘So?’ Villanelle rolls her eyes, gesturing at her phone in the mirror, _get a load of this guy_. ‘You’ve told me this already, you’re being boring.’

‘So, Anna knows.’

Villanelle pauses, hand twitching so her fingers dig into the bruise, sending little pricks of pain up her side. It’s not like she didn’t know someone would tell Anna, she just – Konstantin presses his advantage.

‘Do you want her to come and find you?’

‘I don’t care,’ Villanelle says after a moment of thought. ‘She’s not smarter than me, either.’ She can see the lie on her face, pulls a different one.

‘Oh, you’re sure?’

‘Sure. I left her a learner, now I am the master.’

Konstantin laughs. ‘What movie is that from?’

Villanelle turns away from the mirror, scowling. ‘Did you call just to scold me?’

‘Yes,’ Konstantin says.

Villanelle purses her lips. ‘I could scold you too, you know. “Oh Konstantin, it is much too dangerous to be friends with Villanelle, you should leave her alone to enjoy the three days she has left alive”.’

‘It’s not a funny joke, it _is_ dangerous to be in contact with you.’

‘Well, then, don’t be.’

‘Villanelle – ‘

She hangs up on him, feeling a kind of savage enjoyment.

Villanelle wraps some ice-cubes from the freezer in the face-towel, presses it to her ribs and lies back on the bed. She can hear her phone ringing – _La Marseillaise_ – and closes her eyes, letting the music roll over her, muscles relaxing with the thought of Eve, marvelling at her latest work.

 

…

 

It’s not Eve’s first time, seeing a dead body in real life. She’d seen her grandmother’s body, and she’d seen the leg of her next-door neighbours’ body when she was five, her mother trying very hard to project calm as she ushered Eve back into the house.

And, of course, all those photos.

To see her work in real life, well. It’s like seeing a painting and being able to walk into it.

She can’t take her eyes off him, as though he’ll come back to life, but that’s not right – it’s more that he won’t, that something irreversible and permanent had been done to him. Something outside his control.

The skipping rope has carved deep rivets into his neck, head lolling to the side, mouth agape. The toes of his shoes scrape against the ground, and she wonders how long he managed to stay upright before the exhaustion and the difficulty breathing caused him to sag.

The Widow would have watched. She wonders if she would have smiled, if she was angry. Wonders how Johann had injured her.

‘Are you OK?’ Marius says behind her. He steps into her peripheral, his eyes on her rather than the body.

She nods.

‘It can be a shock, to see them.’

She turns to him. ‘I’m not shocked.’

Marius looks at Johann, brown eyes sweeping from the rafter down to the body. ‘It’s amazing?’

She takes a breath. ‘In an awful way.’

‘But of course.’ His lips twitch, as though he’s deciding between a smile and a grimace, and he settles for turning away.

Eve walks up to Johann, trying to figure out where she would stand, if she had watched Johann die. She thinks she’d stay back, let him die alone, let him die on show, but would the Widow? The Widow who’d come to her on the train station to flirt, to play.

Eve takes a few steps back, until she brushes against the wall, still looking at Johann. She leans against it, remembering the woman leaning over her, wonders if those eyes were the last thing Johann saw. She pulls forwards, feeling some of the fibres of her jacket get caught in the wall. She turns, to see how much damage she’s done, and there, in the middle of her grey fibres, is a green thread.

She smiles.

 

…

 

Eve lets Marius drop her home, though all she wants to do it wait outside the Widow’s hotel. She rolls the thread between thumb and forefinger in her pocket.

Marius drops her at her hotel, and she climbs the stairs two at a time, letting herself into her room and closing the door. She takes the thread out, carefully, untwisting it and then putting it in one of her manila folders. She needs tape, needs to keep it.  

She takes out her phone, finger hovering over Bill’s name. He won’t believe her, a thread is hardly conclusive, Faith is hardly the Widow, what would the Widow be doing, flirting with her?

What would the Widow be doing?

She flicks down to Niko. He answers on the third ring.

‘You OK?’ He sounds like he’s been sleeping, voice rough.

‘I miss you,’ she says. ‘I’m bored.’

‘Oh?’ He sounds more awake now. ‘Go on.’

 

…

 

Eve is back at the café early the next morning, much to the barista’s surprise.

‘Madam, as much as I like seeing your face, I feel I must let you know that Paris has many wonderful cafes,’ he says as he takes her order.

‘It’s nice here,’ she says.

He nods once, and goes off to make her coffee.

She’s only taken the first sip when the Widow exits the hotel opposite. She’s wearing the green coat, the collar turned up against the cold morning air. She looks up and down the street, then straight across it. Straight at Eve.

Eve picks up her cup, taking a long sip, hoping for the anonymity her face usually gives her, hoping she can trail her, but the Widow has made a beeline for her. She feels a spike of fear, that the Widow knows she knows, because why else would Eve be here, and oh God, she’s made such a fool of herself she should have told Bill, told Marius, let the police handle it –

‘Oh my gosh. Hi!’ The Widow beams. When Eve doesn’t say anything, her smile drops a little. ‘Sorry, we uh, met at the Metro, I think?’

‘I don’t think so,’ Eve manages, keeping her eyes down.

‘Oh, I wouldn’t forget that hair,’ the Widow says. ‘I guess I’m a bit easier to forget.’ She tugs at her own hair as if nervous.

Eve puts her coffee cup down, trying to keep her heart from beating loud enough for the Widow to hear. She sucks a breath down through her nose. ‘Oh, yeah.’

‘Sorry if I made you uncomfortable. I was a teensy bit tipsy.’ The Widow is still smiling. ‘I’m Faith.’

‘Uh.’ Eve waves a hand. ‘Susan. I – Susan.’

The Widow raises an eyebrow. ‘Can I get you another cup of coffee to make up for being a brat?’

Eve blinks, then nods, not trusting herself to speak, watching the Widow sit down, the metal chair scraping against the stones like some bad movie sound effect of a knife sharpening.

The Widow waves the waiter over, ordering in broken French and big smiles, before turning her attention back to Eve. ‘So, how’s business?’

Eve shrugs. She dials Bill under the table, finger hovering over the green call button. Her heart is racing, pounding away in her throat.

‘That badly?’ The Widow smiles in a way that makes her look worried, makes her look human.

‘What – what are you, doing, here?’ Eve says.

The Widow looks down, running one of those long fingers across the surface of the table. ‘I really don’t know. I was here to have fun, but it’s not turning out that way.’

Eve swallows. ‘Why?’

The Widow sighs, saved from having to answer by the waiter arriving with their coffees. She takes a sip, smiling at the taste. ‘I think I’m going through a breakup, but with friends, you know?’ She takes another sip. ‘Sorry, I know that’s lame.’

‘No,’ Eve manages. It feels like her throat is narrowing, her tongue too big for her mouth. Does she mean the KGB? Or are there a team of assassins running around somewhere? What is this code for, none of the notes have mentioned friends.

‘Sorry, are you OK?’ The Widow leans in, hand twitching as if to reach out to Eve.

‘What?’ Eve’s caught off guard.

‘You look – upset? Or something? Am I being rude?’

Eve’s thrown. What is the Widow doing? ‘No.’

‘Uh, well, I’m nearly finished so I’ll be out of your hair soon.’ The Widow smiles tightly.

Eve thinks about the green fibre. Maybe it’s the wrong green? She clenches her fist under the table, suddenly angry. She’s being played, toyed with, and the Widow has the audacity to act like nothing is wrong, like Eve is being delusional?

‘No, it’s – it’s fine.’ Eve takes a deep breath. ‘Tell me about your friends.’

The Widow laughs. ‘You want my life story?’

‘Do you have a life story?’ Eve can’t keep the edge from her voice.

The Widow’s face turns from charmed to confused. ‘Yes? Doesn’t everyone?’

Eve shrugs. ‘Business is going well,’ she says. ‘But people keep being bullshit. They just lie straight to your face, you know?’ It’s an awkward segue, clunky, and she thinks she may have overplayed her hand at the way the Widow’s eyes go wide.

‘That’s how I feel.’ The Widow leans forwards. ‘With my friends. God, sorry, I don’t mean to make it about _me_ , but yeah, people are bullshit.’

‘What did they do?’

The Widow raises her eyebrows. ‘Betrayal. They tried to cover up the fact my girlfriend cheated on me.’

‘Girlfriend?’ Eve is taken aback, wonders how much of this is real and fake. She thought they were speaking in code, before, but now.

‘Yeah. Anna.’

‘What was – ‘

‘She was my teacher. I guess she lost interest when I graduated. I got too old, or something.’

Eve splutters and the Widow looks up from her coffee.

‘Oh, well, I was not like… a child.’ She tilts her head to the side. ‘And you already know I like older women, so perhaps I was the seductress. Still sorry by the way.’ Faith has a small smile, eyes roaming over Eve’s face.

‘Don’t be. It’s flattering.’ Eve flushes a bright red at how quickly the words drop out, surprised when Faith’s – the Widow’s – cheeks also turn pink. Her head hurts, watching the way the other woman averts her eyes, watching the flush darken and creep across her face. She feels angry, she realises, that someone thinks they can come and play games with her with no push back, no consequences.  ‘Why are you talking to me?’

‘I – sorry, just trying to make a friend.’ The Widow shrugs, swallows. ‘Sorry, I’m being a bit of a dork.’

‘No. Why are you talking to _me_?’

The Widow sucks the corner of her mouth in, raises her eyebrows. She still hasn’t looked up. ‘I think you know.’

‘I think you’re lying.’

The Widow’s face goes still, slack, and she finally makes eye contact. ‘Why would I do that?’

‘When you’re ready to tell me, I’ll be here.’

Eve watches Faith weigh it up.

‘Tomorrow?’ Faith says. ‘Same place?’

‘Same time,’ Eve says.

Faith – no, the Widow, the Widow – stands with a bright smile, holding out her hand for Eve to shake. Her grip is strong without being tight, hands soft. Not the hands of a serial killer.

Eve watches the Widow walk down the street, around the corner.

She can’t see where the thread would have come from.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> can you tell I google-mapsed Paris?
> 
> chillinglikeavillanelle.tumblr.com


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eve is the mouse, Villanelle is the cat.

Villanelle taps her pen against the page, planning the murder of her second-to-last victim in Paris. He’d gone to ground, but he’s not good at hiding, like a rat in the sewer but, like, wearing a glowstick or carrying a flashlight or – She rips the page in half. What would she even wear to a sewer murder? Gumboots?

She scoffs to herself, tipping her head to look out the window. The street outside is bright with the lights from Eve’s favourite café, doing a modest tea-time trade.

Susan.

Eve was a mystery. A beautiful mystery. Villanelle couldn’t work it out, why someone who knew who she was would bother lying to her. Susan.

It’s almost as though Eve isn’t scared of her, and wouldn’t that be fascinating? As if Eve is stalking _her_ , fancying herself the cat rather than the mouse.

Villanelle sits back in her chair, lacing her fingers behind her head and looking at the ceiling. She wonders which of her murders is Eve’s favourite, if she prefers the bloodier ones or the cleaner ones.

Villanelle likes the messier ones, the way that people’s bodies split open and spill out everything important in seconds, like they can’t wait to be free of themselves. She thinks, sometimes, that the ease with which human beings die is proof that it’s OK to kill them, that they’re just here to experiment with that. Survival of the fittest, and all that, and yes people said that that wasn’t what Darwin meant but it was a moot point when she’d already killed them, wasn’t it?

Anna had said that wasn’t right, that she shouldn’t actually enjoy killing. Which didn’t make sense. They’d taken and taken and the only thing they’d given was the ability to kill – and she wasn’t meant to _like_ it?

She wonders where Anna is, and sighs. She’s still got nine hours before she needs to meet Eve, in which time she should really have killed this other woman, and she’s thinking about things that don’t need to be thought about.

_How do you not want to die?_ Villanelle texts Konstantin, adding a knife emoji for good measure.

_Writer’s block?_ Konstantin texts back.

She rolls her eyes, puts her phone down.

She never gets any help.

…

Eve flounders out of sleep, her phone vibrating off the bedside table onto the floor. She swears, scooping it up off the floor. Unknown number.

‘Hello?’ she says.

‘Eve? Carolyn Martens.’

‘M-Martens?’ Eve says. She slaps the bedside lamp on, squeezing her eyes shut against the blinding light.

‘Yes.’

‘Uh…’ Eve squints around the room, hoping to see something to give her context for why the Deputy-Director is calling her.

‘Well, down to business then?’ Carolyn Martens speaks in a neat sort of way, brisk and efficient, and despite this Eve can’t quite keep up. She puts a hand in front of her mouth, aware her breath must stink, before remembering that Carolyn can’t smell her over the phone.

‘Uh.’

‘There’s been another murder. Rather gruesome. We’re hoping you can get there directly, and then we’ll need you to come on home.’

‘Come home?’ Eve thinks of the green thread. ‘But I’m making progress.’

‘Oh? Do tell.’ Eve thinks she can hear amusement in Carolyn’s voice, pushes the suspicion down.

‘Well…’ Eve hesitates, Bill’s voice ringing in her ear. It’s not believable.

‘Is this about Faith Darby?’ Carolyn says. ‘If it’s any help, we’ll continue to keep an eye on her.’

Eve isn’t imagining the amusement. ‘Right. But there’s other – ‘

Carolyn cuts in. ‘Perhaps you can tell me when you’re safe back here.’

‘But – ‘ Eve can’t form her words quickly enough, can’t piece together enough of a reason to stay.

‘It was a SHIELD agent, Eve. An operational agent. It’s not safe to have an analyst so close to this now that she’s changed her targets.’

Eve frowns. ‘There’s a pattern to these kills. I wouldn’t fit. I think – ‘

‘But you can’t prove a pattern right now.’ Carolyn sighs. ‘You’ll have the chance to argue with me when you get back.’

Eve swallows. ‘Why are you calling? Where’s Bill?’

‘In bed, I assume. I keep odd hours, no need to bring him in for this call.’

‘But, Bill might agree with me.’

‘I’m afraid that wouldn’t matter,’ Carolyn says, voice clipped. ‘You’re booked onto the train this evening. Don’t miss it. Goodbye.’

There’s a silence, Eve staring at the green wall in shock. She hears a sigh down the phone.

‘Are you going to say goodbye?’ Carolyn says. ‘Terribly rude to just hang up.’

‘Oh. Uh. Goodbye?’

‘Goodbye, Eve.’

Carolyn hangs up, and Eve takes the phone from her ear, letting it drop onto the bed. She’s going back home. Back to Niko. Back to staring at a wall full of murders. Away from the murderer.

She thinks about calling back, telling Carolyn about the green thread, the fact that she’s got a coffee date with the Widow in – four hours, Jesus Christ why can’t serial killers murder during the day – but when she looks at her phone Carolyn had called from a private number.

Eve takes it as a sign.

…

Marius pulls up to the kerb, passenger window rolled down. ‘Good morning,’ he says. He looks fresh for someone that’s been woken up so early. Eve’s breath fogs in front of her, and she fumbles with numb hands for the doorhandle. She should have worn a thicker coat.

‘Do you not sleep, either?’ Eve yawns widely, slipping into the front seat.

Marius smiles, gesturing to the two takeaway cups of coffee in his cup holders. ‘Hard to sleep with a psychopath on the loose, no?’

‘I don’t know that she’s a psychopath.’ Eve shifts in her seat, taking the coffee Marius points to. ‘I mean, we’d need to talk to her first.’

‘I don’t think that will be necessary,’ Marius says. ‘Not once you see this.’

‘That bad?’ She sips her coffee. It’s lukewarm, but she’s grateful for the gesture.

‘Worse than the last one.’ Marius taps his fingers against the steering wheel. ‘It is actually sort of amazing.’

Eve smiles at how awkward he sounds. ‘Amazing?’

‘In an awful way. A very awful way.’ He chuckles, flashing her a grin. He looks young, like this, his hair not slicked back with its usual gel. ‘You’ve been a bad influence.’

‘It’s not the first time someone’s said that.’

…

_My heart wasn’t in it – W._

Eve stares at the note, frustrated.

‘This isn’t funny,’ she says. ‘This isn’t a warning. What is this?’

Marius has his hand up to his nose, trying to block the smell of blood. It’s still not dried, a big pool shining in the centre of the room. The victim in question – Rosaline Amsing, forty-two – is slumped in a chair, hand outstretched and clutching her own heart, chest cracked open. Eve can see slivers of bone in the red hole, wonders how the would was made.

‘I think it is a note from a psychopath,’ he says.

‘It doesn’t follow her pattern,’ Eve says. ‘The notes aren’t to communicate with us, not like this. It’s to tease us, to poke fun, to show us she’s clever and funny.’ She waves a hand at the crime-scene. ‘What is this meant to be?’

Marius shrugs. ‘Sorry she disappoints?’

‘It’s not disappointing. It’s frustrating. What, am I meant to believe she didn’t enjoy this?’

‘At least you’re not in the chair,’ Marius says. ‘She’s having a worse night.’

Eve sighs, looking back at Amsing. It’s not as moving – if that’s the right word for it – knowing that the Widow was apathetic when she came here. She pictures Faith, yawning as she breaks Amsing’s ribs to dig at her insides, the blood running down her hands, her arms.

‘This feels very personal.’ Eve sweeps a hand across the room. ‘And yet this is, what, bored?’

‘Isn’t all killing personal?’ Marius takes a gulp of air through his mouth.

‘No.’ Eve pauses. ‘Maybe for her.’

Marius just shakes his head, watching as the crime scene photographers circle the body, lighting it up intermittently with their flashes.

Eve is missing something, she knows. Some motivation, some personal stake in this. She realises that she knows nothing, _nothing_ , about the woman, beyond a suspicion that she’s Russian and a sketch that may or may not be accurate. If Faith isn’t the Widow – as everyone else is saying – then she’s really discovered nothing on this trip. Nothing.

Carolyn is right to pull her, to tell her to come home.

Eve walks around the scene, trying to imagine it, but her heart, ironically, isn’t in it. She doesn’t know what the Widow was thinking, just has half-guesses and those aren’t enough to make her relevant.

She’ll go back to the office, to the dull lights and the old carpet and her wall of dumb theories, and she’ll keep not finding the Widow.

…

Eve arrives late for coffee with Faith.

She’s not sure why she even goes. There’s no point. Faith almost certainly isn’t the Widow, and the game has shifted, for reasons she can’t discern, the targets moving. Having breakfast with a dumb suspect probably isn’t the best use of her time.

She could pack, get ready to go back to her life.  

Faith is sitting at the same table they were at yesterday, a croissant in front of her. She spots Eve and half-stands, waving her over.

‘I thought you were going to bail,’ Faith says.

She doesn’t look tired. She might have been up at least half of last night violently murdering a woman, and she doesn’t look tired. She hasn’t been up half the night, then.

‘Well, here I am,’ Eve says. She sags into the seat.

‘Oh, good.’

Faith orders, and tears the croissant in half, offering half to Eve before tucking into her half. ‘How’s things?’ she says, holding a hand up to cover the mess of food in her mouth.

‘Well, I’m going home tonight,’ Eve says, tearing off a bit of the croissant for something to do.

Faith goes still. ‘What?’ she says.

‘Yeah. Business is going pretty badly. I thought I had a chance, but, well. Turns out I don’t understand it.’ Eve chews on a bit of the pastry.

‘Oh. I thought we had… longer,’ Faith says, taking a deep breath in through her nose. The waiter puts their coffees on the table, the silence between them stretching out.

‘I – didn’t expect you to be upset,’ Eve says.

‘It’s not your fault,’ Faith says. ‘What happened?’

‘I don’t really know. I guess I went down the wrong path.’

‘I think you have good instincts?’ Faith shrugs, tracing the rim of her coffee cup with her finger. Her nails are short and neat, and Eve can’t imagine how much time it would take to get all that blood out.

‘Yeah.’

Faith barely talks through the rest of breakfast. Eve studies her face, thinks over their interactions, the coincidences just that, flimsily hung together by Eve’s own fantasies. If Faith were the Widow, she’d be dead, not having coffee with her.

But it’s still Faith she sees, reaching inside Amsing and plucking out her heart, her writing the note, hair down and glinting in an imagined half-light.

Eve goes in for a hug at the end, an apology for thinking she was a murderer, perhaps, and Faith only hugs back after a moment, as if unused to hugs or resistant to them, patting Eve’s back awkwardly.

‘Goodbye, Susan,’ Faith says.

‘Would you be honest with me?’ Eve says.

Faith raises an eyebrow. ‘Yes?’

Eve draws back, takes a deep breath. ‘When you saw me at the train platform… why did you come up to me?’

‘Because you’re beautiful.’ She answers quickly, but Eve can’t say it sounds flippant. She almost wants it to be flippant.

‘But, was there any… other reason?’ Eve isn’t sure what she wants to hear. If she wants Faith to say, I thought about murdering you. ‘Any reason you came to talk to _me_?’

Faith looks away from Eve, face shifting through various thoughts. ‘No,’ she says, eventually. ‘I probably should have thought it through more, actually.’

It feels honest.

…

Eve flings her things into her case. Niko had packed everything in her case neatly, folded and packed according to when she would need it. She’ll probably have to take it out in one twisted pile with how little she cares. She won’t miss this green room.

Her phone goes off, and she picks up for Bill.

‘It's fine, I want to come home,’ she says. 

‘Oh, Eve, good.’ Bill sounds flustered. ‘Are you alright?’

‘Yes? Of course – what – ‘ She’s interrupted by banging on her hotel door.

‘Ms Polastri? Eve?’ Marius’s voice rings out.

‘Is that Officer Paget?’ Bill says.

‘Yes. Bill, what – ‘

‘Let him in.’

Eve takes the three steps to the door, opening it. Marius sweeps into the room, poking his head into the bathroom, the closet, hand hovering over the gun strapped to his belt.

‘What’s going on?’ Eve asks both of them, voice loud in her own ears. She stumbles back towards the bed and her open suitcase, noting that she’s left her rattiest bra on the top.

‘There’s been another kill,’ Bill says.

‘OK?’ Eve watches Marius yank aside the curtain to look down into the street. It’s unnerving, seeing him be a police officer rather than her chauffeur.

‘Eve, don’t leave,’ Bill says.

Eve pulls a jacket over the bra. ‘I’m – not going anywhere?’

‘No, that’s the note.’

Eve feels a prickle of fear run down her spine from her chest, scratching at her ribs. She sits heavily on the bed. ‘What?’

‘Paget is there to help you.’

‘I want to see the scene.’ It’s for her, the murder scene is for _her_ benefit, and she knows if she can just get there, she’ll find something. Something.

‘No.’

‘But – ‘

‘No. I will send the photos. But for tonight you need to go with Paget to the police station, where we can work out what to do next.’ Bill sounds rattled, his boss voice slipping on, trying to force her into his way of thinking.

‘She said, don’t leave. Can’t I just… not leave?’ Eve rubs at her forehead, pointedly ignoring the look Marius sends her.

Bill huffs. ‘Yes, Eve, let’s do what the assassin says. Call me when you get there.’

He hangs up on her. _Terribly rude_ , Eve thinks.

‘Are you alright?’ Marius says, leaving his spot by the window to stand in front of her.

‘What was the body like?’ Eve says.

‘Uh.’ Marius scratches at the stubble growing in patches across his cheek. He hasn’t had time to go home, clearly. ‘He had no head.’

‘Decapitated?’

‘Oui. His head was on – you know, the round thing on a table that you spin? With the sauces?’

The horror, the fear, and the _vindi-fucking-cation_ crash into Eve like a hammer, and she puts her head in her hands. ‘A Lazy Susan,’ she says. ‘It’s called a Lazy Susan.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one was awful to write


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eve and Villanelle meet thanks to Raymond.

Marius drags her suitcase down the stairs to where his car waits out the front. She’s called Bill, and they’ve put the Widow’s photo out around the police and SHIELD. The Widow won’t get far, Bill says.

Eve doubts that, knows at any moment she’s going to feel the Widow’s knife in her back. The last thing she sees will be hazel eyes.

She should call Niko, apologise, tell him to move on and live a life without her.  

‘We’re going to a safehouse,’ Marius says, cutting through the anxiety screaming in her head.

‘Where?’ Eve says. Focusing.

‘Out of the city.’

‘Where, though?’ She wonders what she really knows about Marius, if she could tell he was out to kill her. She’d known with Faith, and she hangs onto that fact as he continues to talk.  

 ‘Can you open the boot?’ Marius digs into his pocket, passing her the car keys and a slip of paper.

‘Yes.’ Her hands are shaking but she manages to push the unlock button, boot popping up.

As Marius wrestles her bag into the back, Eve reads the address on the note, tucking it into her back pocket. She feels better for knowing where they’re going, like she has a plan and if she just sticks to it she’ll be OK, she won’t have to make any last phone-calls, she’ll survive to have an interesting story for someone’s grandkids. She jumps into the front seat, passing the keys to Marius as he gets in the driver’s seat.

She pulls out her phone to text Bill for an update when something hits the front windscreen, a gentle _chink_ , before it splinters and Marius’s head spits red. He slumps sideways, head cracking against the passenger door. There’s a moment, where Eve isn’t sure what’s going on, what’s happened, glass on her jeans, before she realises that he’s been shot. In the head. Dead.

Eve screams, dropping her phone, fumbling with the seatbelt, fingers tearing on fragments of glass, Marius’s body unnaturally still next to her. Another small noise, and a bullet-hole appears in Marius’s seat.

Eve grabs the door handle, pushing it open and sliding out onto the street, glass tinkling to the ground with her. She hears another woman yell, a man scream, as someone notices Marius’s body.

People are running from the café, the street, and she keeps behind the car, entire body trembling.  She can’t hear anything now over her heartbeat, spots the next car down and barrels towards it, crouched half-over. She falls behind it, skinning her hands against the pavement and the glass still caught in them, blood smearing across the ground. She doesn’t feel it anymore.

There’s still yelling, screaming, but she can’t tell if anyone else is hit, dead, like Marius. God, he’s dead. If the Widow wants her dead, she’ll be dead soon, god she didn’t actually want to die, not like this, not here.

She wonders how they’ll tell Niko, what he will say at her funeral.

_Here lies Eve, too stupid to leave well enough alone._

She should have made that phone-call, told him something, anything. _Your Shephard’s pie actually sucks._

She picks herself up, runs behind another car, another, before making an all-out break for it, ducking into the shadow of a narrow alleyway, pressing herself into the bricks. She hasn’t heard anymore shots, but she has no idea if that means they’ve stopped, its like her sense don’t want to work, don’t want to help her.

As if in proof, she doesn’t hear the person before they’re on her, appearing at the mouth of the alleyway and grabbing her, pushing her backwards with a hand clamped over her mouth. She tries to scream, but it comes out muffled and weak, as the person drags her down the alleyway, fighting her.

‘Stop,’ the person says, and she can’t tell anything about them, vision swimming. She allows herself to go limp, to be dragged a short way, before they’re out into another street. She’s manhandled down two houses, pushed up the three steps and she’s pressed into someone else’s doorway, in the shadow of the architecture.  

She realises she’s being spoken to. ‘Shh, hey, Eve, shh.’

Faith.

The Widow.

A hand is still over her mouth, the Widow’s other hand busy patting across Eve’s upper arm as though trying to make up for bruising it. Eve feels like she might faint.  

 ‘Shh,’ the Widow breathes, eyes darting from Eve to the mouth of the alley and back. Eve can hear footsteps coming up the alleyway, and the Widow presses her body into Eve’s, sandwiching her in the doorway. A man hurries past them down the alleyway, a briefcase clutched in one hand.

‘No yelling,’ the Widow says, before removing her hands from Eve, taking her body away.

Eve can’t speak, mouth opening and closing like a fish.

‘I’m glad you’re still in Paris.’ It’s jarring, to hear the Russian accent when she was expecting Faith’s voice. The Widow steps away from the door, gesturing for Eve to follow. ‘We need to go.’

The Widow stops, looks at her, tilts her head.

 ‘Are you OK? Are you having a stroke?’

‘What – what do you want?’ Her hands are shaking, and she clenches them.

The Widow looks behind herself to where the man has disappeared. ‘Right now?’

 ‘Why did you kill Marius?’ Eve can’t move, can’t stop her hands shaking. ‘Are you going to kill me?’

The Widow looks almost offended, placing a hand over her heart. ‘No. No, of course not. I am protecting you.’ She waves a hand in the direction of the man. ‘That man is dangerous. He shot, uh, Mario. Though he’s not as dangerous as me, which is why you’re safe. If you come with me.’

Eve blinks, watching the Widow watch her. ‘Who – why?’ She can’t manage any more, the memory of Marius’s body fresh in her mind, the overwhelming smell of blood still crawling through her nostrils. It’s different, when it’s someone you know. When it’s fresh.

‘Raymond. He doesn’t like me,’ the Widow says, corner of her mouth twitching up. ‘I made him look dumber than he is.’

‘But – why me?’

The Widow scratches her chin, looking away. ‘He thinks I like you, or something.’ It’s almost coy, and Eve isn’t even going to begin to try and understand that.

‘Why? You – you threatened me?’

‘Threatened?’ The Widow looks back at her, eyebrows drawn tight together. ‘When?’

‘The head,’ Eve says faintly.

The Widow shakes her head. ‘No, that was so you could stay in Paris. You said you wanted to.’   

‘How did you know my name?’

‘I’m good at my job.’ The Widow smirks at her.

‘They’re trying to get me out of Paris, now.’

‘Oh.’ The Widow shrugs, as though it doesn’t matter now. It probably doesn’t. ‘It seemed like a good idea. Two birds, you know?’

‘And – that’s why – this Raymond guy is after me? Because you wrote me a message?’

The Widow stares at her for a second. ‘Huh. I guess so,’ she says.

‘You put a target on my back?’ Eve says.

‘It would really be more accurate to say I saved your life,’ the Widow says, raising both eyebrows.

‘After putting it in danger!’ Eve doesn’t understand, she doesn’t understand.

‘Uh, after trying to help you.’ The Widow scoffs, shakes her head. ‘Look, if you want to die, stay right here. Otherwise, please come with me.’ She starts to walk off down the street, turns and looks at Eve. ‘I won’t hurt you,’ she says. ‘I only hurt bad guys, now.’

Eve pats her pockets, looking for her phone. She can’t remember where she dropped it, if it’s in Marius’s car. The Widow is ambling away from her, like a mother away from a child throwing a tantrum, and she realises that if this Raymond really did kill Marius, she’s safer with the Widow than away from her.

She hurries up the street after her. ‘You’re on my side?’

‘Yes.’ The Widow picks up her pace, sounding bored with the question.

Eve takes a deep breath. ‘I need to call my boss.’

She’s going to be denied, this is how she finds out she’s a prisoner, that she’s been kidnapped by a woman who has the means to make her disappear forever.

The Widow turns her head. ‘Sure.’ She pulls a cellphone from her pocket. ‘Bill, right?’ Her face is lit from below by the light from the phone, eyes shining in her black sockets.

‘How did you – ‘

‘I’m good at my job, Eve.’ The Widow holds out the phone, and Eve takes it, feeling tricked.

‘How do you have his number?’

The Widow pulls a face, like it’s a dumb question. ‘From your phone?’

‘You have my phone?’ The Widow shakes her head. ‘You _hacked_ my phone?’ Eve says.

‘It was very easy. I think you wanted me to.’ The Widow leads her back up another alleyway, towards the street where Marius was shot. Doubling back.

‘I didn’t,’ Eve says, feeling a faint flicker of anger before remembering she’s in the company of an assassin and tamping it down.

‘Mixed messages.’ The Widow shrugs, pausing and looking at Eve. They’re right at the end of the alleyway, where people are passing in dribs and drabs, chattering about things in French. She pulls off her own overcoat, holding it out to Eve. She’s got a thin, dark blue jumper underneath. ‘You have a bit of blood – put this on.’

Eve follows her directions, still clutching the phone in her hands. The jacket smells light, floral, nothing like what the Widow should smell like.

‘Are you going to use that?’ The Widow points at her phone, the screen still on with how Eve is gripping it. ‘I dropped it last week and suddenly the battery is shit.’

‘Why would you let me call someone?’ Eve says.

‘I’m helping you,’ the Widow says.

‘I’m SHIELD. You know that. You must know we – they – want you dead?’

The Widow smiles. ‘You are not a threat to me, Eve.’

‘They might be.’

‘I doubt that.’

‘Then why kill a SHIELD agent?’

The Widow shook her head, holding out her hand. ‘You’re wasting the battery,’ she says.

Eve pulls the phone back. ‘I’m using it.’

‘So, use it.’ The Widow makes a _hurry up_ gesture, rolling her eyes. She glances down the end of the alley, as if checking for Raymond.

‘I am.’ Eve hits the green call button, puts it to her ear.  

‘Who is this?’ Bill picks up the phone, voice tight.

‘Eve,’ Eve says.

‘What – Eve?’ Eve can hear Elena shout in the background as Bill says her name, wonders how long her friends have been there, worried for her. She feels a rush of gratitude, wishes suddenly she was back in the office with its shitty coffee and dull lights.

‘Yeah.’

‘We heard Paget – no, Elena, she’s alright, I think, you’re alright?’

‘Yes, yes, I’m fine.’ Eve wonders if she can say she’s with the Widow. The Widow is feigning disinterest, still making sure they’re clear.

‘Marius – ‘

‘Dead. Someone called, uh, Raymond,’ the Widow nods at her, ‘killed him.’

‘Raymond? Who’s Raymond?’

‘Uh.’ Eve coughs. ‘I don’t really know.’

‘What’s his last name?’

Eve covers the mouth of the phone. ‘Does Raymond have a last name?’

The Widow shrugs, expansive. ‘He’s very ugly, tell them that.’

‘I don’t know it.’

‘Eve, who’s there?’

‘Um. The person who is here.’ Eve points at the phone, the Widow just pulls another face, shrugs, in a way Eve thinks means g _o on._ ‘The Widow.’

‘The – _what_?’

‘Yeah, it turns out that Faith is the Widow.’

The Widow is grinning at her, as though it’s funny.

Bill sounds like he’s having a heart attack, like he’s swallowed his own tongue, spluttering, unable to finish a sentence.

‘God, Eve, you need to – ’

‘I think I’m safe, for now.’

‘Get out of there!’ Bill shouts. The Widow’s grin widens.  

Eve feels almost apologetic towards her, turning away to muffle the noise from the phone. ‘What kind of kidnapper lets someone use a phone? She saved me from Raymond.’

‘Eve – ’

‘I’ll call when I can, OK? I need to go.’

She hangs up on Bill, passing the phone back to the Widow, who looks at the screen with a furrowed brow before sliding it back into her pocket.

‘He cares about you,’ the Widow says.

‘Uhm, yeah,’ Eve says, awkward. She twists her fingers together.

‘My name is actually Villanelle,’ the Widow says. She says it in a way that says it doesn’t matter, that it’s just a courtesy, but Eve can hear the threads of uncertainty, wonders how many people know her name.

‘Thanks,’ Eve says. It’s a nice name.

…

They keep walking, Villanelle taking them on a twisting route through to a new suburb, until it seems she’s satisfied they haven’t been followed. She’s very chatty, for an assassin, cracking a number of terrible jokes, bemoaning the state of people’s yards, the lack of fashion in the nightlife. Eve follows like a zombie.

Villanelle finally stops. ‘Well, we’re here.’

Eve looks up and down the street. ‘Where?’

Villanelle gestures at a car parked on the side of the road. It’s a sleek grey something (Eve is bad at cars), that looks expensive.

‘Is this yours?’

‘Soon it will be ours.’

‘Carjacking?’ Eve stops herself from grabbing Villanelle’s arm. ‘You can’t steal a car.’

Villanelle raises her eyebrows as she steps forwards to inspect the locks, withdrawing something from her pocket. ‘You know I’m a murderer, right?’

‘But – ‘ Eve turns and gestures at a red car parked further up, a dent in its front bonnet. ‘Shouldn’t we get something less conspicuous?'

‘I’ve been staying in a two-star hotel like an animal,’ Villanelle says, using the gadget on the car door. ‘I’ve done my time.’

The car flashes as it unlocks, and Villanelle slides into the driver’s seat. Eve follows after a second, lowering herself into the passenger seat. The dash is leather, and she runs her hand across it despite herself, closing her eyes. She feels exhausted now that she's sat, like she’s run into a wall, the adrenaline leaving her and making her painfully aware of how little sleep she’s had in the last twenty-four hours.

‘Where are we going?’

‘Your safe-house.’ Villanelle smiles, holding up the folded bit of paper between index and ring fingers. ‘Really dumb to write it down. Really unsafe.’

Eve lifts her hips, digging into her back pocket. ‘How did you get that?’ She reaches out to snatch the paper back, and Villanelle lets her.

Villanelle shrugs. ‘Easily.’ She starts the car, grimacing as a French man’s voice pours loudly out the speakers. She turns it down, flicking through to find music.

Eve slumps back in her seat, sighing. ‘So, what, you going to kill the agents out there?’

‘I don’t think any of them are on my list, no.’ She’s distracted with the radio still.

‘What are you, Arya Stark?’

Villanelle settles on a station. ‘Who is that?’

Eve wipes her hands across her face. ‘Are you going to kill me?’

‘ _No_. How many times must I tell you?’ Villanelle sounds frustrated, readjusting the car seat. ‘I am helping you, being very nice, and there’s no trust.’

‘I’m supposed to believe you’re helping me out of the goodness of your heart?’ Eve flicks the vents towards herself, trying to warm her hands.

Villanelle twists in her seat to look at her, and Eve wants to say, just go, just drive, can’t get Marius’s body out of her mind.

‘Do you think I don’t have any goodness in my heart?’ She’s smiling in a way that doesn’t reach her eyes at all.

‘How would I know?’ Eve presses herself into the car door, caught between wanting to talk and wanting to live.

‘They deserved to die,’ Villanelle says. Her eyes look darker, face pulled into a grimace.

‘That’s not for you to decide,’ Eve says.

The Widow shrugs. ‘But I did. It was easy. Do you know the first man didn’t even notice I was there at first? He was too busy watching children be fucked.’ She laughs, but her face is unhappy, hard, eyes not quite focussed on Eve. ‘That might have been a nice way to go, for him. Although he was awake when I stabbed out his eyes.’ She lowers her voice. ‘He knew it was me.’

Eve feels a twist. ‘What about the SHIELD agent today?’

‘Oh, you think SHIELD is above such things?’ Villanelle turns her attention back to the road, pulling out into the street. It’s narrow, and she turns left to get onto a wider stretch.

‘Yes,’ Eve says.

‘Well, you would be wrong.’

Eve shakes her head. ‘You’re wrong.’

Villanelle laughs, dodging out around another car and nearly swiping a bike rider, who gestures after them. ‘I’m never wrong.’

‘So – what? That SHIELD agent was a – paedophile? You kill paedophiles?’

Villanelle shrugs. ‘Among other things.’

Eve hangs on as she takes a corner too fast. ‘Can you slow down?’

Villanelle glances at her. ‘I’m a very safe driver.’

‘You’re not.’

Villanelle huffs. ‘Right.’ She slows down, ducking back in behind the car she just tried to get in front.

‘So, you – you’re a – victim?’ Eve doesn’t know how to say it, doesn’t know how to ask.

Villanelle shakes her head, jaw tight. ‘No.’

‘No?’

‘No.’ Villanelle looks at her with a warning.

Eve doesn’t take it. ‘Do you know what I’m asking?’

Villanelle rolls her eyes. ‘Of course I know. But it’s irrelevant. This is about the Red Room.’

‘The Red Room?’

‘Where I grew up. Why I’m like this.’ Villanelle’s face twists. ‘It’s a KGB thing that SHIELD knew about. And I’m just making sure it doesn’t come back.’

‘SHIELD doesn't work with the KGB.’ Eve swallows.

Villanelle glances at her. ‘Why haven’t you found me, Eve?’

‘What?’

Villanelle shrugs and slows the car down to a crawl, taking the next corner at roughly two miles per hour. A car honks them. She slows down further.

Can you just drive normally?’ Eve snaps.

‘I’m being safe.’

Eve huffs, folding her arms and looking out the window. Villanelle, seeming to realise that she wouldn't get a rise, speeds up.

‘You’re not dumb,’ Villanelle says. ‘I thought I was just very clever, but I know I haven’t been careful. Not if Raymond is smart enough to find me. So why haven’t _you_?’

‘You were like a ghost,’ Eve says.

‘Was I? Or was your taskforce for show?’ Villanelle raises her eyebrows, breezing over a pedestrian crossing, causing an older woman in a bright orange sweater to jump back and fall. ‘OK, I am being careful, but she was very hard to see. She blended in.’

Eve doesn’t react, thinking over what Villanelle has just said. ‘You think someone high up wanted us to leave you alone?’

‘If you never find me, I never tell you that actually, you have a rat,’ Villanelle says.

‘So that’s why you sought me out? To see if you could trust me?’

‘I told you.’ Villanelle tilts her head to the side, glances at her. ‘You’re very beautiful. I didn’t overthink it.’ She smiles.

Eve turns to look out the window, watching the landscape blur by.

A rat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finally they're in the same place


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A very long conversation in a car.

Eve wakes when the car stops, peels her face away from the window. She’s surprised that she was able to sleep, but the adrenaline leaving her body had knocked her out quicker than she’s fallen asleep in a long time. She hadn’t even dreamt of Marius.

Music is thudding away in the background, some Europop band crooning. She blinks at the small boxy building in front of her.

‘Are we here?’

‘No, clearly.’ Villanelle unclips her seatbelt. ‘I am getting petrol.’

Now that she says it, Eve can smell the tell-tale fumes, see the other people walking by the car. She feels slow. ‘How long have I been asleep?’

‘An hour or so. You snore.’

Eve rubs her face, trying to scrub the sleep from her eyes. Her hand slides through drool on her cheek, hair stuck to it, and she and looks at the window to see she’s dribbled down the glass. Jesus. She glances at Villanelle to see if she’s noticed, before miming a yawn, stretching her arms out and attempting to use the sleeve of Villanelle’s jacket to wipe her spit from the window. The motion makes a squeaking sound, and Villanelle looks over.

Her face scrunches up into a slow, disgusted grimace. ‘You can keep that.’

‘I – uh. I can get it washed?’ Eve says.                        

‘No. I will remember,’ Villanelle says. She digs into her pocket and tosses something at Eve. Eve flinches, and a wad of cash smacks into her lap.

‘Go find us some food,’ Villanelle says, getting out of the car smoothly, not even using her hands.

Eve opens the door and plants one foot out on the concrete, her hip straining with the angle. She tries to slide out, before reaching out and grabbing the roof of the car, using her arms to drag herself out.

‘You’re leaving marks,’ Villanelle says from the other side of the car, already holding the nozzle in the outlet. She’s grinning, and Eve scowls at her.

‘I’m too old for sports cars.’

‘For a woman, maybe.’ Villanelle’s grin turns predatory. ‘They don’t know what they’re missing.’

Eve turns away from Villanelle to hide her blush – and shouldn’t she be uncomfortable, with that, shouldn’t she dislike that, what is wrong with her – not sure what to say, and crosses the concrete to the _Total Petrol_. If feels strange to be walking into a gas station. Normal. Too normal for someone who’s just escaped some kind of hitman with an international assassin. They don’t refill cars in the movies unless a shoot-out is about to happen, and Eve can’t spot Raymond.

The doors slide open, admitting Eve into the grungy cream interior, full to bursting with shelves packed with lollies, Band-aids, and condoms. Eve thinks for a second of saying something – but what?

 _The woman out there is an international assassin with the KGB and I’m actually kind-of sort-of the agent sent to find her but she saved me after my friend was killed and now we’re going to safety together, so please call the police_ lacks believability, and Eve can’t really be bothered undergoing a psych evaluation right now.

 _That’s a stolen car_ seems petty, considering the Widow’s other crimes. But they did get Capone on tax evasion, or something, right?

‘Puis-je vous aider?’ The cashier sounds bored.

Eve shakes her head, though she doesn’t understand the question, and takes another few steps into the station. She ends up in front of the fridge, staring at the ‘fresh’ range that has clearly been here since last week, the lettuce wilted. She grabs the freshest-looking salad, though perhaps she just can’t see the mould for all the mayonnaise, and two sandwiches, avoiding the egg, balancing them all on top of each other. On an afterthought, she also gets the water.

‘What’s that?’

Eve jumps, turning to see Villanelle looking over her shoulder. She even looks good under these lights, Eve thinks, ridiculously, her eyes faded out to a kind of amber. Eve wishes she were beautiful like that, effortless and powerful. ‘Food?’ Eve manages.

Villanelle frowns. ‘Seriously?’

Eve takes a step back, causing one of their two-for-one water signs to fall out of the clip.

‘We’re on a road-trip, Eve,’ Villanelle says. ‘We need road-trip food.’

‘Uh.’

Villanelle shakes her head, walking around to another aisle. Eve waits by the fridge, trying to balance the sandwiches and put the sign back in the clip. She manages just as Villanelle reappears, jerking her head for Eve to follow. She’s laden with chips, lollies, and chocolate, using her thin jumper as a kind of pouch, like she’s putting on a kid’s birthday party and needs something for the party bags last minute. Like she’s the kid stealing the party bags. She dumps it on the counter, the attendant barely batting an eye as they start to scan.

Eve watches their total rack up with horror. It makes her think of Niko, how he would only buy snacks from the grocery store, made her sneak chips into the cinema in her handbag.

‘How far away are we, from the… from where we’re going?’ Eve asks.

‘A few hours,’ Villanelle says. She’s stretched her jumper back out, sweeping the snacks in as they get scanned, very pointedly ignoring Eve’s selection.

‘Do we really need all this?’

Villanelle looks at her like she’s dumb. ‘Of course not. But I want it.’

Eve pays in cash, and Villanelle walks to the car briskly, Eve struggling to keep up.

‘Keys are in my back pocket,’ Villanelle says, turning and presenting her bum to Eve.

‘Oh.’ Eve looks at the lump of the keys, and nothing else. Nothing else.

‘Come on,’ Villanelle says, waggling her butt. God. Eve tucks the water under her arm and reaches out, averting her eyes, using two fingers to fish the keys out, unlock the car. Villanelle stands expectantly by the passenger door, and nudges Eve aside when she opens it, dumping her lollies all on Eve’s seat, before deftly claiming the keys and walking back to her side.  

Eve sighs, sweeps the pile off onto the floor, using her foot to carefully nudge the packets aside before planting it firmly down. She attempts a graceful slide in like Villanelle, her stack of health food tilting precariously before her legs give out and she thumps into the seat, sandwiches toppling into her lap but thankfully not opening.

She’s just managed to close the door when Villanelle lunges across the centre console, and Eve jumps, smacking her head into the door. Villanelle’s hand slaps against her leg on its way to grab a full-size bag of Skittles.

‘Jesus,’ Eve says, pressing a hand to her heart, the other to her head.  

‘You think I would murder you on top of my food?’ Villanelle shakes her head, ripping open the top of the Skittles and settling them between her legs. It’s all strangely violent for a bag of Skittles.

‘If you thought it would be funny.’

Villanelle grins, starting the car. ‘You think murder is funny?’

‘I think _you_ find it funny.’

Villanelle starts to leave the station, clicks her tongue. ‘Mm. I think you do too.’

‘No.’ Everybody has laughed at a murder at some time or the other, Eve knows. That doesn’t make it funny, it’s a release, just a release. She’s not _wrong_ for laughing.

‘Liar.’

Eve can’t think of a response that wouldn’t sound like an admission, so opens her sandwich, takes a bite. It’s one of the worst things she’s ever had in her mouth, and she swallows almost immediately, the lump passing painfully down her throat.

‘Is that shitty? It looks shitty.’ Villanelle shoves a handful of Skittles in her mouth.

‘It’s fine. It’s healthy,’ Eve says. The health aspect is doubtful, with the way the tomato tastes like cucumber, the cucumber tastes bitter, and whatever spread they’ve used tastes like salt and curry powder.

‘There could be E coli on that,’ Villanelle says helpfully, around her Skittles. She looks both ways before pulling out onto the road. It’s a very deliberate move for her benefit, Eve knows, and she’s torn between amusement and annoyance. She wonders how Villanelle drove when she was asleep.

Eve takes another bite, defiant, the taste almost as unpleasant as the texture.

‘I don’t know what point you are proving,’ Villanelle says.

‘I’m just eating,’ Eve says. She psyches herself up to take another bite.

‘I just don’t want to get blamed for your death,’ Villanelle says. ‘A poisoned sandwich lacks imaginat- Shit!’ She throws up a finger at the car that just pulled in front of them. ‘I’ll just hit you next time, you fat fuck!’

Eve takes the opportunity to put the sandwich back in the container, sealing it as best she can against leaking and putting it to her side out of view of Villanelle.

Villanelle notices anyway. ‘You can have any of that.’ She gestures at the veritable feast of sugar at Eve’s feet. She has a streak of orange on one finger, on her lip. Eve wonders what it would taste like. She hasn’t had Skittles in forever, since a bout of real food poisoning. She hopes that doesn’t turn out to be ironic.

Eve’s stomach rumbles, and she does need food, when did she last eat? She glances at the clock and realises that she hasn’t even really missed breakfast, but her stomach is clawing at her now, demanding more, and so she ends up with a packet of plain chips, peeling them open and taking a handful. She doesn’t need a sugar high on top of everything else. She thinks of Marius, how different it would be if he were the one driving her. He’d probably not be calling people fat fucks, for one. They’d already be there and Eve might already be on her way back to England, to her office and Bill and Elena and Kenny.

And Niko, of course. Of course.

‘Can I call Bill?’

‘My phone is dead,’ Villanelle says. She shakes her head. ‘They are so fragile, it was soft concrete, really. And it was only kicked once.’  

Eve does feel a little kidnapped, now, as much as you can when eating chips, a twinge of fear at being unable to contact anyone else. Kidnapped-adjacent, she thinks, if that’s a thing. It annoys her. ‘You don’t have a car charger? Why didn’t you buy one back there?’

Villanelle makes a face. ‘Um, why was that my job?’

‘Seriously?’

‘Yeah. If you wanted the phone, you should have done it.’

‘I didn’t know it was dead.’

Villanelle shakes her head. ‘Be present in the moment, Eve. Your generation and phones, honestly.’

‘Oh my God,’ Eve says, touching her hand to her forehead. She wants to laugh, honestly, the undercurrent of fear heightening the absurdity of the situation. She’s sitting less than an arms-length from a woman who cut off someone’s head yesterday, _bickering_ , with Marius’s blood splattered against her shirt. ‘What did you do to Raymond?’ Eve says.

Villanelle glances at her, frowning a little, assessing. She looks like she’s sizing Eve up, deciding whether or not to trust her. Eve tries to make herself look understanding, empathetic, prepared for whatever Villanelle tells her. This is when Eve gets her answers, makes her career worth it.

Villanelle’s lips part, moving carefully and deliberately around the words. ‘How many Skittles do you think I can fit in my mouth?’

‘I – what?’

‘How many?’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I – ‘ Eve slumps back in her seat, turning her head to look out the window. They’re already out of the town, as much as you ever can be in Europe, the road quiet but for the man in front of them. ‘God.’

‘What, you don’t want to know?’

‘No, I don’t want to know,’ Eve snaps. She’s tired, she’s frustrated, she saw her friend die in front of her last night and she doesn’t even know why. She looks back at Villanelle. ‘I can’t believe this is what you’re like in your free time.’

‘This isn’t free time Eve, I’m working. Free time is usually sex.’

Eve chokes.

Villanelle smirks. ‘Or movies.’

‘You watch movies?’ Eve can’t imagine it, the Widow curled up on a couch with popcorn, watching _Notting Hill_ or _Sleepless in Seattle_ or _Legally Blonde_ in the dark, her hair down and feet up, young and soft and normal… Nope, she definitely can’t imagine it.

‘Yes. They only let us watch Disney, so I have had a lot of catching up to do. _Citizen Kane_ was shit, you know?’

‘I’ve never seen it,’ Eve says, flat. _Us,_ she thinks.

‘Lucky you.’

Eve shakes her head. ‘You’re not what I expected.’

‘What did you expect?’

Eve tips her head to the side, eats another chip to buy herself some time. It feels wrong to be eating chips in the middle of questioning an assassin, but she has needs. ‘I guess I expected someone scarier? Someone more…’ She throws her hands up. ‘Someone you could pick in a crowd.’

Villanelle nods, solemn. ‘Like Meryl Streep in _The Devil Wears Prada_?’

‘What?’ Eve starts to laugh.

‘Miranda has definitely killed people.’ Villanelle frowns as Eve’s laugh grows. ‘It’s very obvious, Eve, watch it again.’

‘You watched that?’

‘I like fashion.’ Villanelle seems almost hurt. ‘I didn’t say anything funny?’

Eve wipes tears from her eyes. ‘Sorry. Sorry.’

Villanelle sniffs, and Eve watches her gather up her face, smoothing it from miffed to blank. ‘Alright.’

Eve crunches on another chip. ‘So, what _did_ you do to Raymond?’

‘What does it matter to you?’ Villanelle says. ‘I am fixing that situation for you.’

‘He killed my friend,’ Eve says.

‘Right. That Mario guy.’

‘Marius.’

‘I thought it was a weird name.’ Villanelle drums her fingers against the steering wheel. ‘Alright. I defected. I killed some important people and I left. He was meant to be watching me, so he got in trouble.’ She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes.

‘Who?’

‘I don’t really know.’ Villanelle shrugs. ‘They were just, donors or something. I don’t even know what they donated. Money? Orphans? Grey underwear?’

Eve frowns. She wishes she had her notepad, her pen. She should have bought one at the _Total Petrol_ instead of those awful sandwiches. She feels if she just asks the right questions, she’ll know the Widow. She can go back to Bill and say, _I looked for a murderer and found an asset_ , and then she’ll finally get a fucking pay rise and some recognition. She'll be allowed out into the field, to lead her own team. 

‘You defected from the KGB?’

‘No, the Red Room. I’m not really KGB.’ Villanelle smirks. ‘I’ve killed a lot of them lately, so I don’t think they’ll let me in.’

‘And what’s the Red Room?’

‘A KBG thing.’

Eve takes a deep breath to avoid groaning. ‘OK. Well, why did you decide to leave, then?’

‘No.’

‘No?’

‘No.’ Villanelle draws the word out, and Eve can hear the edge in her tone, backs away from it.

‘You said – it made you?’

‘Well, I was trained there.’

‘To be an assassin?’

Villanelle frowns a little. ‘To be me.’  

Eve shakes her head. ‘So, you left, and started hunting the people involved, what, eighteen months ago?’ She wants her files, wonders if the Paris police have them, or SHIELD, or Raymond. She hopes it’s SHIELD.

Villanelle raises her eyebrows. ‘Yes. How did you know?’

Eve shrugs, trying to downplay the smug satisfaction in her chest. She wants to call Bill, _told you so_. ‘Your notes. They were… different.’

Villanelle smiles. It’s almost smug. ‘Oh.’

‘It was all you, right? I had so many arguments with people who thought you were a group of people.’ Eve studies Villanelle’s profile, watching the way her eyes crinkle with her smile.

‘Just me,’ she says. In her head, Eve does a victory lap of the office, _told you all so_.

Villanelle’s mouth tugs down and Eve is struck, suddenly, with the thought that perhaps Villanelle is lonely. She wonders if she has anyone else, if she’s ever had anybody else. ‘You had, uhm, classmates, right? The Red Room had other students.’

‘Many.’

‘Who are the others?’ Eve only knows of one other female assassin, the Ghost, and she’s nowhere near as prolific, or creative, almost boring in comparison to the Widow’s flair. The thought that they may have come from the same place makes Eve want to read the other woman’s file again, find their similarities this time rather than their differences.

‘They’re dead,’ Villanelle says. ‘A long time ago.’

Eve’s thoughts grind to a halt somewhere over remembering the Ghost’s predilection for poisons. ‘What? How?’

‘I don’t really want to talk about it, Eve. OK?’ Villanelle snaps. ‘Let’s talk about something else.’

‘But – ’

‘How did you become a SHIELD agent?’ Villanelle says.

‘Um. I was recruited.’

‘Who by?’

‘Carolyn Martens. She liked my work at college. At university.’ Her post-grad Masters degree as a mature-age student, after moving to England with Niko, happy and newly-wed. She’d spent those first years of their marriage locked away in the library (the we-never-see-each-other sex fantastic), and she’d spent the rest locked away in her office (when we-never-see-each-other became too literal for sex).

‘What did you study?’ Villanelle doesn’t even sound interested, just impatient.

‘Criminal psychology.’

Villanelle laughs. It has a mocking edge, cruel and sharp. ‘Of course. So, what do I have?’

‘What?’

‘What’s wrong with me? Am I a sociopath? A psychopath?’ She pouts. ‘Am I just depressed?’

‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘I thought I would.’

‘Ah, I am a mystery,’ Villanelle says, rolling her eyes.

Yes, Eve thinks. She’s wasted so much time sleeping, and she’s never going to get the answers she wants, the answers she needs. ‘Who is the rat?’

‘If I knew, they’d be dead,’ Villanelle says.

‘Well, what do you know about them?’ They must be high up, Eve thinks, or adjacent to high up, a department head like Bill. Frank? A bullshit investigation into an urban legend would give you plenty of leeway, and access to some of the higher ups. She can’t imagine Frank being so bold though, or having good enough control of his department to cover up leaks.

‘I know that they’re a SHIELD agent who is going to die.’

‘So, nothing?’

‘Of the two of us, you’re the one that knows nothing.’ Villanelle’s voice is tight. ‘What new information have you given me, exactly?’

Eve feels stung. ‘Maybe I’m too good at _my_ job to tell you things.’

Villanelle laughs. ‘Oh, sure, I’m sure that’s it.’

‘If I’m so useless, why are you helping me?’ Eve snaps. ‘Why didn’t you just leave me?’

Villanelle rubs at her eye, taking a deep breath. ‘This again. Because you would be killed? I can turn around, if you like.’

‘I can handle myself.’ Eve folds her arms, trying to convince herself it’s not a lie. She wonders if Raymond would kill her like Marius, wonders why he shot him first, if Raymond assumed Marius was the threat rather than Eve.

Villanelle rolls her eyes again, clenches her jaw. ‘Well, you don’t have to.’

‘I’ve been trained,’ Eve says. Lies, mostly. She’s been made to attend some health and safety lectures about how to act in the field to keep yourself away from the action, and which form to fill out if she ever tripped on the sidewalk while working.

Villanelle nods, shrugs, like she’s fed up. ‘I’ve been trained more.’

‘I’m competent.’

Villanelle arches an eyebrow. ‘Ah. It matters what I think.’

It’s not a question, but Eve answers anyway. ‘No.’

‘Mm.’

‘So, why not let Raymond kill me?’

Villanelle sighs again. ‘I told you, I only kill bad guys, now. You’re not a bad guy, even if you work in a bad place.’

‘Oh, like you’re not a bad guy?’ Eve says, sarcasm dripping from her words. She’s sick of the circles, sick of the half-answers.

Villanelle slams on the brakes, wrenching the wheel to bring the car onto the shoulder of the road. Eve yells as the car grinds to a halt, skidding a little on the sandy gravel.  

‘Jesus!’ Eve says. Her chest aches from where the seatbelt caught, and her hands are stinging from how hard she slapped the dash. ‘What on – ‘

‘I did not rescue you so you could use your stupid university degree against me,’ Villanelle snaps, turning the car off. She’s looking straight ahead, knuckles white against the steering wheel. ‘I will turn this car around.’

Eve rubs her chest, taking a deep breath. ‘I’m just doing my job.’

Villanelle looks at her now. ‘I thought your job was to find me. Congratulations, by the way.’

‘I just want to know you,’ Eve says. She bites her lip at the admission, at the way Villanelle’s face softens.

‘Why?’ Villanelle says.

‘I’ve spent the last seven years looking for you,’ Eve says.

‘How romantic.’ Villanelle’s mouth is pulled down in one corner, and Eve can’t read the expression, wonders if perhaps she hasn’t been reading any of them, just guessing.

Eve takes a deep breath, trying to flush the agitation from her chest, her arms. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’ Eve thinks she should maybe be saying it like a hostage would to a kidnapper, something to say so you don’t get hurt. But she means it.

‘But you did mean to interrogate me.’

‘I just – wouldn’t you be curious?’ Eve says, sweeping an arm to encompass Villanelle. Villanelle runs her eyes up and down Eve, nods ever so slightly. They feel closer, now, the car almost cramped with their bodies. Eve can feel the sweat under her arm pits, the grease in the creases of her face, the grime on her hands. Villanelle’s forehead has a shine to it, her hair looking a little darker, the black bags under her eyes screaming of lack of sleep and makeup. It’s almost intimate, the way neither of them is put together, neither of them at their best.

‘You’re not what I expected, either,’ Villanelle says, finally.

‘How so?’

‘You’re much more beautiful than in your staff photo, for one.’ Villanelle doesn’t smile, holding eye contact.

Eve rubs her forehead, dropping her gaze. ‘God. Yeah. They don’t let you change it. Bill still has his from when he was thirty.’

‘And you’re not as scared as you should be, questioning me like this,’ Villanelle says. ‘I am much worse than Miranda, you know.’

Eve thinks maybe she should be more nervous, that maybe her voice should come out strangled, but instead she’s almost breezy. ‘You said you wouldn’t hurt me.’

‘And you believe me, now?’ Villanelle stares at, face blank.

‘I don’t know. But I know you won’t kill me on top of your food.’ She gestures to the pile.  

‘Unless it’s funny,’ Villanelle says, giving a lopsided shrug.

‘Well, just don’t do it in a boring way.’

Villanelle arches one eyebrow. ‘I’m never boring when I do it.’ Her voice is deeper, somehow, huskier.

Eve flushes. ‘I meant – don’t murder me in a boring way.’

‘Right.’ Villanelle draws the word out.

‘I did,’ Eve says. She bites the inside of her cheek.

‘Well, I’m not going to murder you, sorry,’ Villanelle says.

‘I’m not disappointed,’ Eve says, with an incredulous laugh.

‘Mm. Maybe a little.’ Villanelle scrunches up her nose, holds her forefinger and thumb a centimetre apart.

‘No,’ Eve says. She wishes her face would stop reddening, twists her hands together for something to do.

Villanelle just smiles, and starts the car again. She frowns at the rear-view mirror, watching for cars coming up behind them. She has a bump in her nose, a gentle curve, and Eve imagines running her finger down it, imagines those eyes and that nose being the last thing she ever sees.

The woman on the radio is crooning something in French, and Eve looks away until they’re back on the road.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: we move the plot forwards.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They arrive at the safe house, which Eve realises is poorly named.

Eve is starting to get into French music. She likes the way she doesn’t understand what they’re saying, finds it somehow relaxing. Villanelle occasionally sings along, just a little. Her voice is terrible, and her clear lack of knowledge of the words causes her to stop and start like a stutter. Eve finds it strangely endearing.

She should let Niko sing more. He had a bad voice too, completely tone deaf, and she’d only ever found it grating. She decides she will let Niko sing more, when she gets home. For a bit. In moderation. Finding the same lack of talent charming in an assassin is basically a survival tactic, she thinks, some kind of Stockholm Syndrome. It doesn’t say anything about her and Niko.

They haven’t talked much in the last hour, just Villanelle pointing out interesting signs or features, like this is an entirely normal car ride. Eve’s moved on to a block of chocolate, Villanelle on her second bag of Skittles (and God, how disgusting is that), and there’s a comfortable silence between them, until Villanelle clears her throat.

‘Well, here we are,’ Villanelle says, pulling the car to a stop on the side of the narrow road.

‘Where?’ Eve looks around, can’t see anything that screams safety.

‘Here.’ Villanelle points out the narrow, dark driveway, curving up a short slope and disappearing behind a hedge. Eve can just make out a sliver of house.  ‘Enjoy your sleepover.’

‘You’re – you’re not coming in?’

Villanelle raises her eyebrows, studying her face. ‘You want me to walk you in? I will be shot.’

‘I’ll vouch for you,’ Eve says. She wipes at her mouth, worried with the scrutiny that she has chocolate on her lips.

Villanelle looks at her pityingly. ‘I’m going to have to say no.’

‘Are you serious?’ Eve says. ‘This is basically the middle of the woods.’

Villanelle shrugs. ‘I did not choose your safehouse.’

‘But – ‘

Villanelle just smirks, waving her hand up the driveway. ‘It’s just up there, I promise. Don’t forgot to give me a five-star rating.’

‘I’m not sure you deserve it,’ Eve mutters, unclipping her seatbelt.

‘I got you snacks,’ Villanelle says, mock offended. Or, possibly real offended, Eve thinks.

Eve stares up the driveway again. There aren’t any cars that she can see, but for some reason Eve expected someone to come down and whisk her to safety. Devoid of people, the driveway feels like an ominous, looming presence, like she’s a character in a horror movie about to do something stupid. ‘I’ve never done this before,’ she says. ‘Is there a protocol? Shouldn’t there be more people?’

Villanelle sighs. ‘How should I know? It’s your work.’

‘And you’re sure this is the place?’ Eve cranes her neck, but can’t see anymore of the house.

‘Yes. Look, I will wait until you’re inside before I leave, OK?’ Villanelle smiles, indulgent.

‘How will you see that?’ Eve says.

Villanelle tips her head to the side. ‘OK, I’ll listen for your screaming. Good or bad.’

Eve pressed her lips together. ‘Well, thanks for your help, I guess.’

‘No problem, anytime.’ Villanelle holds out her hand for Eve to shake – Eve doesn’t take it.

‘Even though you’re the reason I’m in this mess.’

‘Of course,’ Villanelle says. ‘You didn’t do anything to contribute to the situation.’

Eve narrows her eyes. ‘I didn’t.’

‘Alright.’

‘I didn’t.’ Eve frowns, and resumes staring up towards the house, the seconds ticking by.

‘You really don’t want to go, huh? I’m starting to think you like _like_ me,’ Villanelle says with a slow, suggestive smile.

‘I don’t.’

‘Liar,’ Villanelle says. ‘It’s OK, Eve, we’ll see each other again.’ Eve’s first (possibly suicidal) instinct is to snap, _no_ , but Villanelle’s voice is light, warm, fond, and she thinks that maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

‘I’m not worried about that,’ she says instead.

‘Well, then, goodbye,’ Villanelle says, flapping her hand in the _now shoo_ gesture. ‘I have things to do that aren’t driving you around, you know.’

Eve’s not sure why she feels so torn. Maybe it’s the fact she probably shouldn’t be letting the Widow go, that she might in fact be spectacularly bad at her job. Maybe it’s the fact that getting out of this car means that it’s over and she has to start dealing with some of this shit, not the least of which being the strange realisation that the homicidal maniac she’s been chasing is, in fact, very likeable. She ends up looking at Villanelle, her eyes sliding from the horror movie driveway to the horror movie assassin. One is much more comforting than the other.

Villanelle reaches out, and Eve doesn’t move as she brushes her fingertips over the back of Eve’s hand. ‘Or, we could keep going? If that’s what you want.’

It’s a quick gesture, really, but it takes an eternity for Eve. She watches Villanelle’s fingers, follows them as they retreat back to Villanelle’s side of the car. Villanelle tries to look casual, but Eve notices the way her hands curl and twist into each other.

Eve places her hand on Villanelle’s bicep, wrapping her fingers into it and squeezing, a steady, grounding force unlike Villanelle’s fleeting touch. This is what she wants, she thinks, something like this. She’s just not sure what that means.

‘I don’t think that’s possible,’ Eve says.

Villanelle flicks her eyebrows up, as if to say _of course._

‘OK,’ Eve says, opening the car door. The air outside is cold compared to the warm interior of the car, and she pulls Villanelle’s jacket more tightly around herself. ‘Um. Bye.’

‘Bye.’ Villanelle sounds flat, uninterested, and Eve feels a flicker of hurt.

Eve starts up the driveway, looks back to where Villanelle is sitting, watching her. She’s not sure how to read her expression, but a shiver that’s unrelated to the cold runs up her back. She raises a hand in goodbye, and Villanelle does the same.

Eve breaks eye contact first, walking around the slight bend, the car disappearing from view behind the hedge. The house itself is a small, boxy building, very unromantic compared to the garden, where flowers twist over the white picket fence that marks where a vegetable garden has been planted. It looks lived in, and Eve panics for a second, thinking that Villanelle has got the wrong house, or worse, is just fucking with her. She imagines walking back down, finding the car gone and the looming figure of Raymond in its place.

She crunches over the gravel to the door, making too much noise to feel safe, and tries the handle. It’s locked, and she glances behind herself before knocking.

She can hear someone rushing to the door, hands slapping against the door as, she assumes, they look out the peephole in the centre of the door. She takes a step back as a deadbolt is slid back. The door opens, and it’s Bill.

Bill.

Eve gapes at him, then lunges forwards for a hug, nearly knocking him off his feet. As hugs go, it’s not great. Something hard is poking into her ribs, he’s patting her awkwardly, and she’s gripping too tight for it to be comfortable.

‘Let’s get inside,’ Bill says, taking a step back and breaking their embrace.

‘What are you doing here?’ Eve walks inside, turning to watch him relock the door.

Bill tugs his shirt back into position as he fiddles with the deadbolt. ‘I’m here to pick you up. I can’t believe – is she gone? I thought I would need the gun, honestly.’ He’s breathless with relief, a grin on his face.

‘I don’t know,’ Eve says. She’s not ready to think about Villanelle.

‘You don’t know?’

‘She was waiting to make sure I got inside.’

Bill looks caught between a laugh and a yell. ‘What the hell,’ he says.

Eve shrugs, looking down the hallway. ‘Where is everybody else?’

‘They thought it was best not to spook her,’ Bill says. ‘We didn’t want to get into a firefight with you in the middle.’

‘Wait – you’re the only one here?’ Eve says, frowning.

‘Yes.’ Bill breathes out a sigh. ‘I know, I know, we should have _tried_ , but – ‘

‘Bill, this is stupid. You need to – we need to leave. This is so, so stupid,’ Eve says, pressing her face to the door to look out the peephole – can’t see anything. ‘This isn’t safe.’

‘What’s wrong?’ Bill grabs her shoulder.

‘It’s a setup. I don’t know how, but it’s a setup.’ Eve shakes him off and rushes into the living room, hanging back and looking through the window. There’s still nothing, just the flowers, bobbing in the gentle breeze. ‘It must be.’

‘A setup?’

‘There’s a rat, a mole, in SHIELD. Someone who doesn’t want us to find her,’ Eve hisses. ‘And now that we have, they’ve sent us out here to die.’

Bill pauses, watching her draw the curtains closed. ‘A mole? Why would there be a – ’

‘Because SHIELD helped the people who were using her.’ Eve grabs Bill’s hand and drags him deeper into the house, away from the front. ‘We need to leave.’

‘We’re being extracted in two days,’ Bill says. ‘Eve, it’s fine. She let you go, you’re safe. I know what I’m doing. I wasn’t always on desk duty, you know.’

Eve feels a fresh wave of horror flood through her. ‘Please, please, tell me it isn’t you. Tell me you didn’t know.’

‘Didn’t know what? Eve, I know it’s been a terrible shock for you, but – ‘

‘Why haven’t we found her, Bill? She’s a fucking attention-seeker who doesn’t wear fucking gloves, how did we not find her?’ Eve stops in the kitchen, behind the inbuilt counter. It’s the furthest from any windows, which is a small consolation given the way the dining room is ringed in glass, sliding doors opening out to a narrow lawn, a hedge. ‘And we’ve got some other psycho on our tails, that Raymond guy. Oh, God, we’ve been setup.’

‘Eve,’ Bill takes her by the shoulders, turns her to face him. ‘You’re having a panic attack.’

She slaps his hands away. ‘Of course I am, I’m about to die.’

‘Come on. Come lay down.’

She lets Bill lead her towards the bedroom, down a second hallway off the dining area. She bumps into his back when he stops in the doorway to the room, a choked gasp escaping his mouth.

Her heart rate picks up, she imagines his brains splattered against the wall, imagines Raymond shooting her too, the last thing she sees being his dark eyes and impassive, stony face.

She looks around Bill and relaxes. It’s just Villanelle.

‘Oh, hi,’ Eve says.

Bill makes another noise and reaches into his jacket – she grabs his wrists and tugs them backwards, to his side, hoping he understands.

‘Wait,’ she says. ‘It’s OK.’

‘Eve?’ Bill says.

‘It’s OK.’

He doesn’t reach again.

‘Hello, Eve,’ Villanelle says, watching their exchange without moving. She’s sitting on the bed, casual, legs spread, elbows on her knees. ‘I was worried. You didn’t scream.’

Eve feels flattered, or something like it, a sense of pride welling in her chest _._ ‘Everything’s fine.’ She can breathe again, Villanelle will help them out of this, and everything will be fine. All because of Eve. ‘It’s not Bill.’

‘Did he tell you that?’ Villanelle stands, and Bill backs up, pushing Eve into the hallway. Eve frowns, trying to get in front of him, but the hallway is too narrow to slip past. Bill continues nudging her back with his body as Villanelle grins at the show, walking slowly towards them.  

‘I know him,’ Eve says. ‘I know it’s the truth.’  

They make it back out into the dining room, and Eve manages to slip around Bill. He grabs the back of her jacket, tries to pull her back, but she slaps his hand away. He lets go. Villanelle has stopped coming towards them, and her smile drops into a sneer.

‘Let’s say I trust you, Eve. Who else would it be?’

‘I don’t know,’ Eve says. ‘I just know it isn’t Bill.’ She pushes him behind her with one hand, hears the dining table slide against the floor as he knocks it in his step back.

Villanelle’s eyes flick behind Eve. ‘It might be,’ she says.

Eve feels a prickle of uncertainty, now, at the look on Villanelle’s face. ‘It’s not. He’s a good man. Please, believe me.’ Eve holds out a hand, though Villanelle hasn’t moved. ‘He wouldn’t let any of the things that happened to you – ‘

‘Don’t pretend you know,’ Villanelle says. Her face twists into something wild, feral, and Eve would suddenly prefer to not be standing here right now. Or, she’d prefer Bill wasn’t standing here. She shifts so that she’s more in front of Bill.

‘It’s not working,’ he breathes in her ear.

She swallows. ‘Bill’s not that person, OK? I wouldn’t protect him if I thought he could be.’

Villanelle’s hands are twitching, fingers curling and uncurling as her face staggers through a range of expressions along some thought process Eve can’t begin to guess at. Eve wants to reach out, touch her, help her through whatever is happening.

Eve takes a breath. ‘Trust me.’

Villanelle narrows her eyes, body going still. ‘Move, Eve.’

Eve feels like the breath has been knocked out of her. ‘What?’

‘Move so I can finish it.’ Villanelle reaches behind herself, pulls out a knife. And where had she had that hidden this whole time?

Eve looks at it, some part of her struggling to understand. ‘No.’

‘Eve – ‘ Bill tries to move out from behind her. She can feel him reaching for the gun.

‘No,’ Eve says, trying to make both of them listen. ‘Please, trust me.’ She realises she never had the control here that she thought she did, that she’s not the biggest influence in the room for either of them. Neither of them trust her understanding of the other.

Villanelle scowls. ‘Move.’

‘You said you wouldn’t hurt me.’

Villanelle’s face flickers. ‘And?’

‘You’re not a bad guy.’ Eve doesn’t even know if she believes it, can hear Villanelle’s voice in her head: _liar_. But she needs something, something, to stop what’s about to happen. Behind her, Bill makes a sound of disbelief.

Villanelle’s eyes widen, and her shoulders slump. ‘Eve.’

Bill latches on to her distraction, pulling the gun from the holster under his jacket, shooting over Eve’s shoulder at Villanelle, who is already on the move. The shot goes wide, the sound of the gunshot ringing in Eve’s ear as Bill pushes her to the side. Eve hits the floor hard, elbows and hands protesting the treatment.

‘No!’ she yells. ‘Stop!’

Another gunshot, but Villanelle is already in the process of kicking the gun from Bill’s hand, the bullet punching a hole in one of the overhead kitchen cupboards.

Bill backs up, stuck in defence mode. He looks alive, the tiredness in his stance shaken off, and he manages to twist Villanelle’s wrist, knife dropping to the floor.

Eve has a split second to hope that neither will be able to kill the other, before Villanelle grabs Bill’s head and knees him hard in the stomach. Bill yells in pain, as Villanelle wrenches him back upright and shoves him against the glass doors. She elbows him the face before planting her forearm over his throat and pushing.  

‘Bill!’ Eve yells. She jumps up and grabs Villanelle’s shoulders, pulls, but Villanelle pushes her away easily. Eve falls to the floor again, spots the knife out the corner of her eye, just under the table. ‘Villanelle, stop. Please. He’s not the guy, he doesn’t deserve this.’

Bill is already going purple, his eyes bloodshot and bulging in his face.

‘Yes, he does. Grow up, Eve.’ Villanelle glances at Eve, her eyes deep and dark like death, and Eve understands, now, that what the Widow does isn’t art, isn’t fun. Isn’t any different to Raymond killing Marius, except more messy and personal.

Eve doesn’t have any relationship with Villanelle that the Widow won’t forget next week.

‘You’re wrong,’ Eve says, reaching for the knife.

‘You wanting me to be wrong is not the same thing,’ Villanelle hisses through clenched teeth, lips curled back in a snarl.

Eve picks the knife up from the floor, bumps a chair as she does so. Villanelle looks over her shoulder at the sound. ‘You’re ruining the moment, Eve.’ Her voice is low, dangerous, and she doesn’t look back at Bill.

‘Please let him go.’ Eve only has to take a couple of steps to be in stabbing distance, to save Bill. She thinks about how Villanelle deserves it, how she’s unapologetic and unrepentant, how a person like that shouldn’t be allowed to just do whatever they want. How she should have been stopped years ago.

Eve raises the knife, Villanelle smiles, and a gunshot cracks across the house, glass exploding inwards. Eve closes her eyes, holding a hand up to protect herself, the image of Bill and the Widow falling stuck on the back of her eyelids.

She hears them hit the floor, hears Villanelle’s whine and Bill’s gurgle, and she opens her eyes to red.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yikes.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Feelings (and other things) are hurt.

‘Bill!’ Eve screams, rushing forward. She drops the knife beside him, making a wet squelching sound. Her hand hovers over his shoulder, which is propped up on Villanelle’s ribs.

‘Oh, sure,’ Villanelle groans. She pulls herself out from under Bill, pushing him away, causing him to fall to his side. A gash has taken out of her forehead from the glass, and she’s painted in blood, Bill’s blood, her thin jumper stuck to her stomach.

Eve rolls Bill onto his back. His eyes are open, and he’s blinking at the ceiling. ‘Bill? Bill!’ Eve clutches at his hands, his cheeks, presses her hand into the wound in his stomach, cuts her palm on a bit of glass. There’s so much blood. His blood is sticky on her hands, his blood has soaked through the knees of her jeans, his blood is eating into the carpet.

‘We have to stop the bleeding!’ Eve yells at no one, at herself, at Villanelle, maybe. She takes off Villanelle’s jacket, presses it to Bill’s stomach. His eyes are wide. ‘Bill?’ She touches his face, leaving behind red fingerprints against his skin. ‘Bill?’

Eve thinks she might be sick.

She looks around for Villanelle, to ask her what to do, because surely she’ll know, she knows how to kill she’ll know how to save, and finds that she’s currently dragging herself upright against the dining table with one hand, legs shaking and shoulders rigid. Her other arm is curled around her stomach, blood dribbling through her fingers.

‘Did – did you get shot?’ Eve is surprised to find that she’s crying, can taste the salt on her lips.

‘Thanks for noticing,’ Villanelle says, breathless, resting her forehead against the table, still on her knees. She groans as she gets first one leg under her, then another, pushing upwards.

‘Where are you going?’ Eve says, watching her take an unsteady step forwards, palm pressed into the table.

Villanelle looks at her like she’s grown an extra head. ‘Idiot.’ Her words are clearly costing her, ground as they are between her teeth. ‘Away from the window.’

Eve looks back to Bill, to the broken window. He’s dead, he’s dead, he’s dead. Eve’s brain keeps skipping over the words – every time she’s close to understanding them, to moving past that realisation to something else, they circle back.

She looks up at Villanelle, needing something, anything, to help her brain unstick from this. Villanelle hasn’t made it very far, is now using the wall as a kind of crutch, sliding her shoulder across it to try and get down the hall towards the bedroom.

‘We can’t leave him!’ Eve’s voice cracks.

‘Why?’ Villanelle hisses, before her legs falter and she sags to her knees. ‘Shit, shit, shit.’

It feels like there’s a gulf between them, a chasm, where Eve can’t bring herself to move. ‘You can’t leave me here.’

‘You were going to stab me,’ Villanelle says.

‘No.’ Eve didn’t, she wouldn’t have burnt that bridge, not now.  Eve can’t move, she knows she’s a target, she should be running like she did with Marius but how is she meant to leave Bill? She takes his hand. She should have insisted they go, immediately, she shouldn’t have wasted time arguing with Villanelle, thinking she could change her or reason with her.

‘Liar.’ Villanelle huffs a laugh. ‘Terrible _liar_.’ Her eyes drift from Eve to something behind her, lips twisting.

A voice breaks behind Eve. ‘Did someone call a window repair man?’

Eve whips her head around to see a short, dumpy kind of man with a receding ginger hair line, and she thinks for a ridiculous moment that maybe someone has called a repair man.

‘Help,’ she says.

The man’s face twists in a mocking kind of worry. ‘Oh, dear, what a mess. Hello, Eve. We keep meeting like this.’ He points a pistol at her, a silver case in his other hand.

‘Raymond. Long-time no see.’ Villanelle grins at him, no longer trying to move, slumped against the wall. Her face is alarmingly pale against the blood dripping from her forehead, against the dark blackish hue of the blood splashed down her front like an apron.

‘You look a little worse for wear,’ Raymond says. He takes a step into the room, crunching across the glass. Eve still can’t quite believe that this is the man who has murdered two of her friends, that he looks so like a rat, like a man who nearly got to play Peter Pettigrew.

‘You – ‘ Eve manages.

‘I have a cold.’ Villanelle pouts, watching as Raymond walks over to her. Eve thinks she should do something, but doesn’t get further than that, with the gun still pointed at her face.

Raymond smiles, staring down at her. ‘It’s over.’

‘Do it, then,’ Villanelle says, all humour gone from her face, a savage kind of anger on it instead.

‘I’m not here to kill you,’ Raymond says. ‘I’m here to bring you back.’

Villanelle gives a hollow laugh. ‘No.’

‘Yes.’ Raymond pulls a face at her, plants a foot on her stomach, over her hand, presses.

Villanelle doesn’t make a sound, but Eve can see the pain on her face.

‘Stop it,’ Eve says.

They both look at her, Raymond amused, Villanelle surprised.

‘Like you give a shit,’ Villanelle says, back to being pissed off. Fair, Eve thinks.

‘Trouble in paradise?’ Raymond says, smiling.

Eve hates him, hates him, and surprises herself by standing, despite the gun on her. She wants to strangle him, though she doubts she could get her hands all the way around his stubby neck. She wants to _hurt_ him, in a way she hadn’t wanted to hurt Villanelle. She’d needed to stop the Widow, she wanted to ruin Raymond.

‘What are you going to do?’ Raymond says.

 Villanelle’s fingers twitch against the floor; she shakes her head a fraction, frowning.

‘Fuck you,’ Eve says.

Villanelle grunts as Raymond takes his foot off her, his attention focused on Eve. He holds the gun in two hands, a sneer twisting his face.

‘Careful, Eve. He’s very fragile. A misogynist,’ Villanelle says, smiling as Raymond turns his gaze back to her. ‘Aren’t you, Ray?’

‘Oh, Eve, sadly it looks like Oksana would like for you to die,’ Raymond says, taking another step towards Eve.

Villanelle rolls her eyes, but doesn’t say anything else, watching as Raymond stalks over to Eve.

Eve wants to run, to fight, but she thinks all that would happen is she would be shot, her blood mingling with Bill’s. Poetic, perhaps, but not exactly what she wants. _Here lies Eve, too stupid to leave well enough alone,_ Niko says in her head.

Raymond gets close enough to press the barrel of the gun to her temple, and the thoughts rush out of Eve, leaving her with an awful aching fear. He gestures to one of the chairs. ‘Sit.’ Eve takes a step back, breathing again as the gun leaves her skin, sitting on one of the dining chairs ramrod straight and still. Raymond pulls a roll of duct tape out of his pocket, using one hand to trap her one wrist then the other against the wooden bars that make up the back of the chair. He then moves to her legs, wrapping it several times around her ankles.

She thinks now of Niko, of their house, of the fact that she could be smelling roast chicken, bread and butter pudding, _Indian_ , right now, instead of here, if she’d just left the Widow alone. She wasted seven years of her life, spent hours and hours of overtime at work, and for what? To die, stuck to a chair?

Eve looks over at Villanelle, who saved her from certain death for this other certain death. Thanks, she thinks, bitter. Thanks. Villanelle is slowly sliding to the side, her eyes unfocused, face white, now. She thinks maybe she should tell Raymond, but can’t get her mouth to work against the horror of it all.

Raymond straightens up and turns back to look at Villanelle, tutting. He drags her upright, struggling with her dead weight, before dumping her on the table. He puts the gun down on the kitchen counter, and Eve eyes it.

Raymond picks up his silver case, putting it on the counter next to the counter. He snaps on a pair of gloves.

He’s going to try and save her life, and Eve has watched enough hospital dramas to know that field medicine is probably not going to be enough here. ‘She needs a hospital,’ Eve says, voice shaking and constricted like it gets when she’s asked to deliver a presentation. She watches as he gets out scissors, forceps, a needle and thread.

‘That’s not going to happen,’ Raymond says, raising an eyebrow, as if surprised to hear her speak. ‘Do you not understand what’s happening here?’

‘You probably hit something,’ Eve says.

‘Yes. Two people,’ Raymond says. He crosses to the table, cutting away Villanelle’s jumper, her shirt, hacking into her high-waisted pants to expose her stomach.  

‘I mean, an organ, or something,’ Eve says.

‘I didn’t.’ Raymond reaches back for the forceps.

‘How do you know?’ Eve feels sick as she watches Raymond ease the forceps into Villanelle’s wound; the woman groans but doesn’t move except to half-open her eyes.

‘I have very good aim.’ He pulls the bullet out, dropping it on the floor. It rolls, leaving a short, neat line of red. The cleaning bill for the carpet is going to be huge, she thinks, wondering how large the SHIELD budget is. It might be cheaper to replace.

SHIELD.

Carolyn knows where she is, she thinks. Kenny and Elena know where she is. Surely Bill has a check-in schedule, surely an alarm will be raised before this goes much further. She just needs to stay alive until then, to get back and tell someone that Bill died because of a mole, that so many people died because the Widow was protected.

Raymond has started to stitch Villanelle up, pushing the needle through her skin. Eve has to look away.

‘Why do you think she likes you?’ Raymond says, eyes still intent on the wound, almost lovingly. ‘You don’t seem like much.’

Eve shrugs as best as she can. ‘I don’t know.’

‘You should be grateful, Eve.’ Raymond sounds amused. ‘You’d be dead, if she didn’t.’

‘You wouldn’t have noticed me.’

Raymond shrugs. ‘Perhaps.’ He finishes stitching the wound, before he pulls Villanelle back off the table, dumping her limp body into a chair and taping her down like Eve. He drags the chair over to the kitchen counter, taking out a blood bag and putting it on the counter, sliding the needle into Villanelle’s arm. It’s not the most effective system, but Eve can see that gravity is doing its work anyway.

Raymond leaves, and Eve can hear him making a phone-call in the living room, can hear Villanelle’s wheezing breath, the wind through the broken glass making her feel cold.

She doesn’t look at Bill.

…

Raymond hasn’t come back. It's been what feels like days, is probably at least two hours, and she wonders if maybe she’s been left here to starve, to die, with Bill’s corpse next to her. She can’t hear him moving around the house, doesn’t know if he’s even still in the house. She keeps thinking he’s behind her, twisting her head to look out through the window.

The sun is setting, and she’s startled to remember that Marius died _last night_. She’s freezing, goose-bumps forming on her arms. Villanelle is shaking too, maybe from the cold, maybe from the blood loss. Eve doesn’t know much about blood loss, except what’s in the movies.

Villanelle’s breathing changes, and Eve looks up as the woman’s head flies forward, Villanelle bending forwards and vomiting between her own feet. Eve can’t see it, the table in her way, but a slight acrid tinge to the air makes her own stomach twist.

Villanelle groans as her stomach muscles work to pull her back against the chair, back into Eve’s view. Her eyes land on Eve, wide and wild, a strand of hair stuck to the corner of her mouth, others stuck to her forehead. Villanelle swallows, eyes running down to the drip in her arm, back up to the blood bag. Her lips curl. ‘How much blood did I lose?’

‘I’m not a doctor.’

‘Thank you for telling me,’ Villanelle snaps. She pauses in her perusal of the room to stare at Eve. ‘You were going to stab me. It’s dangerous, to be your friend.’ She says it all slowly, as if piecing it together as the words fall from her mouth. Her breathing is hard, almost whistling from her nose.

‘You were going to kill my _best_ friend!’ Eve is angry enough to hit someone, something, anything, the heat burning through her chest and down her arms. She clenches her fists, her cut palm a bright point of pain. She’s grateful for it, for the way it takes her mind off the rage, feels like if she only had the anger she would somehow suffocate with its weight.

‘Looks like Raymond did both our jobs, then.’ Villanelle narrows her eyes, and Eve glares back, feeling more tears welling in her eyes.

‘If Bill was the mole he wouldn’t have been killed,’ Eve says.

Villanelle rolls her eyes, tugging at her wrists and wincing. ‘Probably not.’

God, how is she unaffected? ‘You were wrong,’ Eve spits.

Villanelle sighs. ‘Well, I have been punished for that.’

Eve closes her eyes, takes a deep breath to keep from screaming. ‘I trusted you,’ she says.

Villanelle snorts. ‘No, you didn’t. You think I am some broken thing that can be patted better and when I have a mind of my own you try to kill me. Just like everyone else.’

‘That’s not true.’ It’s not. She’d never thought the Widow could be fixed, just… distracted.

‘You lied to my face.’

‘When?’

‘You’re not a bad guy,’ Villanelle’s voice is high-pitched, mocking. ‘You thought I wanted to hear it, but you didn’t mean it.’  

‘That wasn’t – it didn’t have to be a lie,’ Eve says, remembering Villanelle’s face in that moment, the hope or the longing, something, crumbling her. The thought that she’d been upset hadn’t crossed Eve’s mind. ‘You _chose_ to hurt him.’

Villanelle smiles, shakes her head. ‘So, the truth is that Eve Polastri doesn’t lie, other people just don’t act how they should?’

‘That’s – ‘ Eve pressed her lips together, tight. That’s not right, she wants to say, but perhaps the truth is that it’s closer to right than wrong. ‘That’s not fair.’

‘Well – ‘

‘Don’t say life isn’t fair,’ Eve says. ‘That’s really obvious right now.’

Villanelle tips her head to the side, eyes calculating. Eve’s thinks the scrutiny would be worrying if the effect wasn’t ruined by how awful she looks. ‘You think you’ve been treated unfairly?’

Eve wants to say yes, but something sticks it in her throat. ‘I think Marius and Bill were treated unfairly.’

‘Who?’ Villanelle shakes her head. ‘Oh, right, Mario.’

‘Marius.’

‘Yes, poor him,’ Villanelle says, sarcasm dripping from her words.

‘Why don’t you care?’ Eve says. ‘They were good men.’

Villanelle rolls her eyes. ‘Why should I care? What have they done for me?’

‘Being a good person isn’t about getting things,’ Eve says. ‘It’s about doing good things.’

‘I’ve done many good things,’ Villanelle says, raising an eyebrow.

‘Murdering people doesn’t count.’

‘Murdering murderers and rapists _should_ count. What have you done that’s been so noble?’

Eve sighs, turning her face away. ‘Tried to catch a murderer.’

‘Failed,’ Villanelle says. ‘You failed to catch a murderer. That’s not great, is it?’

‘Maybe you’re right where I want you.’

Villanelle starts to laugh, groans as the motion hurts her. ‘Only if you’re Raymond’s friend, too.’

‘I don’t have any friends anymore. They keep dying.’ Eve swallows against the tears threatening to fall, scowls when Villanelle does her laugh-groan again.

‘So dramatic,’ Villanelle says. ‘I’m still here.’

Eve gapes. ‘We’re not friends. You know nothing about me.’

‘We’ve known each other for seven years,’ Villanelle says. ‘You’ve been searching for me.’

Eve flushes. ‘We’ve known _of_ each other for seven years.’

Villanelle shrugs, shifting in her seat as if to get comfortable. ‘You understand my notes. That means I understand you.’

‘I don’t,’ Eve says. ‘You don’t.’

Villanelle’s face is almost waxy with sweat, but her eyes are clear and her words are sharp. ‘I know that you are bored of your husband. Your texts are very bland. Uncaring, almost. Do you realise you never ask about his day?’

Eve grits her teeth, can tell by the glint in Villanelle’s eyes that the woman thinks she’s cracked Eve. ‘Hacking into my phone is not the same as knowing me.’

‘It’s like a diary, actually. You should delete your browser history, it goes a long way back.’

Eve wishes she could walk away from this conversation, the sense of exposure hitting her in the face, leaving her cold and furious. The thought that Villanelle knows about her search history, her sparse conversations with Niko, is awful. The fact that she was interested enough to look is… ‘Fine. I know that you’re scared.’

Villanelle grins. ‘I don’t get scared.’

‘You’re scared of going back.’ Eve watches Villanelle’s face as it tightens. ‘What does that mean, going back?’

‘It doesn’t mean anything,’ Villanelle says. ‘I escaped once, and I’ll do it again.’

‘What will they do to you, if you don’t?’

‘God, Eve, you’re so obsessed.’ Villanelle smiles at her. ‘You should be worried about what they’re going to do to you.’

Eve won’t let her deflect. ‘Well, I’m worried about you.’

‘How sweet. I am in a lot of pain,’ Villanelle says, light.

‘I can’t trust you if I don’t have the facts. Friends share things.’

Villanelle frowns. ‘You said we weren’t friends. Stop trying to manipulate me. Just be honest.’

Eve looks at the floor. ‘I’m not the manipulative one.’ She sounds petulant even to her own ears, like a child who swore because someone else did.

‘Well, whatever.’ Villanelle sounds angry again, hurt. ‘You don’t have to trust me, Eve, but you’re the untrustworthy one. You would have literally stabbed me in the back.’

‘I would have been right.’

‘I thought murdering murderers was wrong?’ Villanelle grins as Eve presses her lips tight together. ‘You don’t have the moral ground.’

‘Stop twisting everything I say,’ Eve says. ‘We would have helped you.’

‘He shot at me,' Villanelle scoffs. 'Was I meant to stand still?’

‘You could have subdued him.’ Eve wants her hands free to shake Villanelle, make her see reason.

‘Would you give the people who tortured you as a child the benefit of the doubt?’ Villanelle says it casually, like it’s nothing to linger over.

Eve doesn’t. ‘He wasn’t one of them!’

‘How was I to know?’

Eve’s frustrations spill over, the sense of betrayal, the way she’d basically killed Bill herself with her idiocy, the feeling of being completely in the dark with an axe over her head. ‘Because I told you! You said you liked me, you said you wouldn’t hurt me! This _has_ hurt me! I don’t know what to say to you to get you to help me, now, rather than make everything worse!’ Eve hates it, hates the way she feels like she did lose a friend. It’s dumb, it’s naïve, it’s dangerous. ‘You just made it all worse! I should have died in that fucking car with Marius!’

Villanelle opens her mouth, closes it. She looks unsure. ‘Thank you for your honesty. I didn’t try and make it worse.’

‘Well.’ Eve takes a deep breath.

'And I didn’t kill him.’ Villanelle sounds almost defensive.

‘I didn’t stab you,’ Eve snaps.

‘But you would have.’

‘And you would have killed him.’

Villanelle nods, once.

Eve sighs, tips her head back over the backrest of the seat to look at the ceiling. ‘OK, then.’ It feels like clearing the air, even though nothing about this is fixable. 

Villanelle just raises her eyebrows, before her face twists and she leans forwards. She looks like she might be sick again, face screwed up. ‘I don’t feel well.’

‘You were shot,’ Eve says, flat.

‘No, I feel – ’ Eve can hear her retching. ‘Ouch.’ She folds herself almost flat, so that Eve can no longer see her for the table.

‘Are you OK?’ she says, some of the anger fading into worry.

Villanelle doesn’t answer her, and Eve can hear her breathing getting deeper. She assumes she’s passed out again, body needing rest and recuperation.

Eve closes her own eyes, breathes through her need to cry again. They should have just kept going, she thinks. The car would be warm, she would have food, neither of them would be angry, and Bill would be alive. 

They should have kept going. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RIP Bill. 
> 
> (Imagine how good it would be if they did keep going though. I might have to write an AU of my own dumb story.)


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Villanelle gets them on the same page.

Eve passes into an uncomfortable kind of doze as the room gets darker, the only light coming from the moon outside and the microwave lights in the kitchen. She can’t make out the time from where she is, can just see the faint green glow. It feels like she’s trying to sleep on an airplane, except she’s the one that needs to pee instead of her seatmate. The last time she’d flown, she’d had the middle seat so that Niko could stretch out into the aisle, and the window-seat passenger had had a bladder the size of a pea, nudging Eve what felt like every twenty minutes to get up. She’s also cold like on an airplane, freezing air coming in through the broken door.

Apart from anything, it’s actually kind of boring to be kidnapped. Once the immediate panic at being killed faded, once the horror at Bill had sunk into the background, she started to wish for Villanelle to wake up so she had someone to talk to, wanted Raymond to come back so something could happen one way or another. Anything but sitting here in the dark alone.

She tries to work out how long it is until Bill needs to check-in with SHIELD. Surely he had to call them before the extraction, let them know she’d made it? It can’t be long until Kenny raises the alarm, and Carolyn sends someone, and surely the mole won’t be able to stop Carolyn from rescuing Eve.

She can just make out Villanelle. She’s been restless, body twitching. Her head is now flung back over the chair, at what must be an uncomfortable angle. She’s shivering too, though Eve can see a sheen of sweat on her forehead when the green light catches it at the right angle.

She’s not sure how much time passes, with her staring at Villanelle at trying to ignore the urge to pee when the hallway light flicks on. Eve squints against the glare, her eyes itchy from crying. She can see Raymond coming towards her, his footsteps light despite his general uncoordinated gait. He reaches the kitchen, turns on that light too.

Villanelle’s brow wrinkles, and she’s just opened her eyes when Raymond reaches her. He picks up the bag on the counter, lifting it. It’s about halfway through, and he rests it back on the counter, looking at Villanelle. She scowls at him, and he flicks the centre of her forehead.

‘Not long now,’ he says, with a smile.

‘Until?’ Villanelle sounds bored.

‘You’re well enough to travel.’

‘I don’t have my passport.’ Villanelle turns her face away as he pats the top of her head.

‘Don’t worry about that. I’ve sorted everything out.’

God, Eve hates him, hates his smarmy voice and his mocking face. ‘Where are we going?’ she says.

‘We?’ Raymond turns towards her, lifting an eyebrow.

‘If you wanted to kill me, I’d be dead,’ Eve says, voice only wobbling on the last word. She feels proud of that.

‘Oh, but I do want to kill you,’ Raymond says. ‘Quite badly. But I also want leverage. It’s a Catch-22.’

Villanelle rolls her eyes behind him. ‘Everything you say is like a Bond villain.’

‘Except I’m going to win,’ Raymond says. He stretches his arms above his head in an exaggerated yawn. ‘Well, I’m back off to bed. Anyone need anything before I go?’

‘Um. I need to use the bathroom,’ Eve says.

He waves a hand, already on his way out. ‘Feel free.’

Eve imagines him choking to death on Scar, imagines his ribs cracked open and his small black heart exposed, imagines him hanged.

He hasn’t turned the light off, and the brightness and lack of sleep is causing her head to throb.

‘Eve, I need you to listen to me,’ Villanelle says, voice low and quiet. She flicks her eyes towards where Raymond has gone. She’s still shivering, and she looks like real shit, sweaty, grimy, pale, her eyes two black holes in her face.

‘OK.’

‘We need to leave.’ Her accent is stronger, now, harder to understand.

‘Oh, really?’ Eve notices that the reason Villanelle’s eyes look so dark is that her pupils are larger than they should be, the hazel in her eyes a thin ring around the outside. Eve thinks it might be pain, might be shock. ‘I must have missed that.’

Villanelle makes a face at her. ‘Grow up.’ She shifts down in the chair, tugging at her wrists.

Eve’s mouth drops open. ‘Me? How much of that vomit was Skittles?’

‘All of it,’ Villanelle says, slow, like Eve is the dumb one. In the time it takes for Eve to formulate a response, she turns her head, opens her mouth and grabs the IV line between her teeth, pulling it from her arm.

Eve can’t stop the horrified noise escaping her throat. ‘You need that!’

‘I don’t think so,’ Villanelle says. Her breathing is heavy, her blinking a moment too slow to be normal.

‘You lost a lot of blood,’ Eve says, studying the other woman’s pale face, her bloodless lips.

‘Well, I can’t put it back in now, Eve,’ Villanelle says. ‘Do you have a plan?’

Eve presses her lips together, tight. ‘Do you?’

‘You’ve been awake longer,’ Villanelle says, petulant. ‘Have you just been sitting there?’

‘You’re the assassin,’ Eve says. ‘Surely you have experience.’

Villanelle looks offended. ‘I don’t have experience getting caught because I don’t get caught.’

Eve shakes her head, biting her lip to keep from saying something she’ll regret. Villanelle arches an eyebrow at her expression, and Eve stares back.

‘You might be able to break the tape,’ Villanelle says, finally. ‘You need to twist your arms.’

Eve tries, bending her elbows, shuffling her shoulders down as far as she can go. Her wrists ache with the effort, and her arms and shoulders are tight, almost numb with the posture she’s held. ‘It’s not working,’ she grunts.

Villanelle folds down out of Eve’s line of sight, slow, and clicks her tongue. ‘You’re doing it wrong. You need a sharper angle.’

‘I notice you’re not doing it.’

‘I did try,’ Villanelle snaps, easing back up. ‘But I’m bleeding out, at the moment.’

Eve huffs. ‘Can’t you just, break your thumb or something?’

Villanelle raises her eyebrows. ‘That’s a myth. Unless you’d like to try?’

Eve struggles for a little while longer with the tape, but she can’t get the pressure right, the tape holding firm. ‘I can’t break it.’

Villanelle sighs. ‘I noticed that there’s glass next to you.’

Eve looks down at it, glinting on the carpet. She thinks she probably still has some buried in her knee, her palm. She flexes her fingers, the scabs from the windscreen and the window pulling at her skin. ‘You want us both injured?’ she says, flat.

Villanelle rolls her eyes. ‘You might be able to grab a big piece.’

Eve looks doubtfully at the shards. ‘Or I’ll just end up with more glass in my arm.’

‘You can be hurt now or later.’ Villanelle’s voice is matter-of-fact, her face hard.

Eve twists her neck, tries to work out where her hand will land, where the biggest piece is. ‘It’s a bad idea,’ Eve says.

Villanelle scowls at her. ‘Alright, I’m all ears. What’s your big plan? Resurrecting Bill?’

Eve feels it like a slap. ‘Don’t.’

Villanelle just shakes her head, closes her eyes.

Eve casts about for something better than the approach she’s been working on. ‘We wait and we take the right opportunity later.’

‘Are you joking?’ Villanelle opens her eyes with some difficulty. She looks exhausted.

‘No.’

‘We can’t wait!’ Villanelle hisses. ‘We don’t have time!’

‘Why?’ Eve tries to keep her voice calm.

Villanelle opens her mouth, closes it. It looks like she can’t decide how to say what she wants. ‘You’ll piss yourself.’

‘I’ll hold it,’ Eve says, voice tight.

Villanelle’s sighs, a loud angry sound that reminds Eve of a child. ‘Would it hurt to try my idea?’

‘Yes!’ Eve shakes her head. ‘I’m not doing it.’

Villanelle swallows hard – Eve can see her throat clench with the effort, and she breathes out long and low through her mouth. ‘Please?’ The word sounds wrenched from her.

Eve sighs, studying Villanelle’s face, her eyes wide, her eyebrows scrunched up in earnest. ‘No.’

Villanelle wrinkles her nose. ‘I can’t believe I wasted a please on you.’

‘You can’t waste a please.’

Villanelle smiles in a tight, annoyed way. ‘And yet I have.’

Eve shakes her head, watching Villanelle continue to tug at her wrists, like she’s hoping the duct tape will magically lose its strength. She can’t seem to bend, her arms too straight to get any give in the tape. Her face is twisted in the same way it was when she had Bill by the throat, anger and frustration curling across her lips.

‘Wait,’ Eve says, realisation dawning. ‘What about the knife?’

Villanelle’s eyes bulge. ‘You have it?’ Her tone is acidic.

‘Not on me. I dropped it. By Bill.’ Eve’s throat tightens around his name, and she can’t bring herself to look over.

Villanelle tries to crane her neck to see him. ‘Can you reach it?’

Eve bites her lip, feels tears stab at her eyes. ‘I can’t.’

Villanelle stares at her blankly. ‘You’re not really trying, Eve.’

‘I can’t!’ Eve presses her lips together. ‘I can’t even look at him.’

Villanelle looks at her for a long moment and then groans. She rocks her chair back then forwards, scooting a tiny bit forwards on the carpet. ‘I have to do everything myself.’ Every time the chair moves forwards she winces, her face getting paler by the second. Eve feels guilt curdle in her stomach, but she doesn’t want to move, doesn’t want to see him. Shouldn’t have to, not for Villanelle.

Eve frowns. ‘Wait, why didn’t you come throw yourself on the glass?’

Villanelle pulls a face at her. ‘I didn’t think it would work.’

‘Seriously?’ Eve feels like yelling. She watches Villanelle tip back and forwards again, grunting. The sweat on her forehead is gathering, running down her face.

‘No point arguing about it,’ Villanelle says. She’s covering even less distance now, her shoulders sagging. She stops, tipping her head back, face scrunched tight, breathing heavy.

Eve estimates she’s moved roughly two inches. ‘Are you OK?’

‘Yes,’ Villanelle says through clenched teeth.

‘How would you even get it?’ Eve says.

‘I don’t know,’ Villanelle says. ‘But I will.’ She does one more scoot before bending forwards, swearing under her breath. Her breathing is on the edge of wheezing.

‘Stop,’ Eve says. ‘You’re just hurting yourself.’

‘You aren’t helping,’ Villanelle says.

‘That’s not fair.’ Eve wishes she were back in the dark, now, wishes she were bored again – and how had she been bored, alone in a house with two murderers?

‘Fair would be you helping me instead of sitting there like everything will be fine if you’re a good girl. It won’t be, Eve. SHIELD isn’t coming, only Raymond. He’s not going to kill you quickly. It will be slow, and it will be painful, and everything that you are will be gone.’ Villanelle sounds like she’s lost all patience, all strength, her voice like gravel underfoot.

Eve swallows against the flood of fear through her body, watches as Villanelle’s chair rocks backwards – and keeps falling. Something cracks against the counter before she hears the chair thump against the floor, and Villanelle grunts as the air is pushed from her lungs.

‘Villanelle?’ Eve ducks her head to look under the table. Villanelle has her eyes squeezed shut, her teeth clenched. Eve thinks she might have hit her head, with the way her head is pressed against the base of the counter. ‘Are you OK?’

‘Not really,’ Villanelle says. She gives a deep, long sigh. ‘Raymond!’ she yells, and Eve jerks her body back upright, looking back down the hall. ‘Eve, get the knife.’

‘I – what? I don’t even know if it’s there,’ Eve says. ‘No.’

‘Raymond!’ Villanelle yells again, and Eve hears him swear from another area of the house, his footsteps clomping back up the hallway.

She curls her fingers into fists, her heart hammering against her ribcage in anger and fear. She doesn’t know what Villanelle expects her to do, doesn’t know why she expects her to do it. She’ll just sit here, stick to her plan, and wait for SHIELD.  

‘What?’ Raymond takes a second to find Villanelle, and when he does, his face slashes open into a smile. ‘You can stay there.’ He’s about to turn away when he sees the bag, dripping onto the floor. He sighs, a big, exaggerated gesture. ‘What did you do that for?’

‘I don’t like drugs,’ Villanelle says. Oh, Eve thinks. Oh. She feels stupid, Villanelle’s pupils and her sudden frantic need to get out making sense.

Raymond leans down, and Eve watches as Villanelle is pulled back up into sight. Raymond’s just set the chair upright when she throws her body forwards, the top of her head connecting with his lip, slicing it against his teeth.

Raymond backhands her. ‘Just take your fucking medicine.’

Villanelle laughs at him, face twisted in a malicious kind of glee. ‘Is that from your villain handbook?’

Eve wonders what will happen to her if Villanelle gets herself killed.

Eve glances out the corner of her eye, her whole body jolting with the horror of seeing Bill, of seeing the extent of the blood stain. She looks away before forcing herself to look back. Villanelle’s jacket is ruined, lying sopping against his stomach. She can’t see the knife. It must be under the jacket, tucked up against his side. She can’t remember exactly where she dropped it, just remembers falling to her knees next to him.

Maybe Raymond had grabbed it in all the confusion and it’s not even there.

Eve jerks her chair to the side, mimicking Villanelle’s movements as she tries to go towards Bill, towards the knife. Her progress is faster than Villanelle’s, at least.

 Raymond grabs Villanelle’s hair, pulling it and tilting her head back over the chair. ‘Don’t test me.’

Villanelle spits up at him. Raymond wipes it off with his hand, before reaching forward to rub it on Villanelle’s face. She sinks her teeth in to his hand, into the fleshy section between thumb and index finger. Raymond screams, muffling the horrified sound that escapes Eve. He tries to yank it back, but only succeeds in digging her teeth in further, and Eve wonders if Villanelle will end up with a mouthful of his flesh.   

Eve knocks against something, and she looks down, horrified to realise it’s Bill’s head, his body stiff and blue. She swallows a yell, and looks down the length of his body, trying to work out where the knife would be, where she needs her hand to fall. She’s never been great at estimating distances.

Raymond is still yelling, and she glances over to see him finally get his hand free, a flap of skin curling from the webbing between his thumb. Villanelle is laughing at him, her mouth and chin stained with blood.

‘Sorry for ruining your sex life.’

 ‘I’ll kill you,’ Raymond hisses, cradling his hand to his chest.

God. Eve tips the chair backwards, bracing herself for the impact. Her head still hits the floor, a dull thump echoing in her ears, turning her vision spotty as all the air is forced from her lungs. She’s too old, to be doing this. She turns her head to try and see what she’s doing, reaches out with her finger tips, touching the soggy cold carpet and wanting to cry.

She can’t find anything.

Eve hears a slap, hears Villanelle start laughing. ‘There are dead people that hit harder than you, Raymond.’ Her voice is lilting, almost sing-song, and Eve can hear Raymond hit her again. She coughs. ‘Dead birds, even.’

Eve lifts her shoulders, jerks her whole body to the side, trying to get the chair closer to Bill. Her wrists are protesting, her back screaming. The chair slides a little further, and her fingertips brush against something metallic. She presses her eyes shut against the tears, and hooks her fingers around the blade of the knife, pulling it towards herself. She walks her fingers up, trying to turn it to get her hand on the handle.

She can’t hear Villanelle anymore.   

The duct tape parts easily with the first tear, and she starts work on the other wrist, then her legs before rolling off the chair and trying to stand. Her hands are shaking, her legs weak and cramping, and she thinks for a second of just running, straight out the broken doors to freedom. Her eyes fall to Bill’s, staring up at the ceiling like marbles.

Raymond killed Bill.

Raymond will kill Villanelle. 

She turns back to the scene. Raymond has his good hand wrapped around Villanelle’s neck, his bad hand dripping onto the floor. Villanelle’s eyes flick to Eve, her wide pupils, bruised face and bloody mouth making her look deranged, almost inhuman, as a smile stretches across her face.

This is the person I’m saving, Eve thinks.

‘Stop, smiling,’ Raymond grunts, pushing against her throat so that the chair tips back, bumping against the counter. Villanelle just smiles more broadly, even as her lips turn blue. 

Eve raises the knife. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this seemed like the right place to cut this monster chapter. 
> 
> comments always appreciated.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Murder most deserved.

Eve has read about murder since before her university days. She listens to murder podcasts, reads murder books. She watches murder documentaries, murder mysteries. She sits in her office and stares at a murderer’s notes, wondering how they could write them, how they could be so happy at the thought of death.

She’s always wondered how she would feel. She didn’t imagine it feeling like this, like all the panic and pain and anger has gone to be replaced by a blanket of calm, of ease.

Eve stabs, bringing the knife down into Raymond’s lower back. It’s easy, she thinks, it’s so easy, the way the knife slips in with barely a shudder, like it’s being sucked in by gravity. She pulls it back as he gasps, as he tries to turn, and sinks it in again, into his side this time. She lets go, taking a step back as his eyes find her face, wide and confused.

He lets out a grunt, and grabs the hilt of the knife, sagging to the floor. His breathing is ragged, gasping, and she’s hit by the fact that he’s suffering.

It feels wrong.

Eve lifts her hands to her mouth, hears someone sob, realises it’s her. She takes another step back, away, but she can’t take her eyes off Raymond, who is laying on the floor now, his face pressed against the carpet. He’s groaning, rattling, twitching. She should help him, she could help him, and she’s not sure what’s worse – the fact that she stabbed him or the fact that she doesn’t want to help him.

‘Look at this drama queen,’ Villanelle says, her voice hoarse. Her chest is heaving as she sucks in air. ‘Like he’s the only one in the world to ever get stabbed.’

‘Why did you do that?’ Eve says, pressing a hand to her heart, her head, trying to calm herself down.

‘Me? What did I do?’ Villanelle licks her lips, smearing the blood across them further. Raymond gurgles on the floor. Eve feels sick.

‘We could have made a plan, why did you do all of that?’ Eve can’t stop herself shouting, her voice cracking around the words.

Villanelle frowns, her own voice calm. ‘Well, I couldn’t just wait on the floor, could I?’  

‘If you hadn’t rushed it – ‘ Eve can’t get enough air in, breaks off to rub her chest.

‘It all worked out fine,’ Villanelle says.

‘Fine? Fine? I just killed someone because you – ‘

‘You could have run,’ Villanelle says.  

‘I couldn’t leave you!’ Eve shouts. She wishes the words back as soon as she says them.

The silence is broken by Raymond coughing next to them, and Eve thinks, he’s not dead yet, and Eve thinks, I could still save him, and Eve thinks, I want him to choke.

‘It’s not my fault,’ Villanelle says, slowly.

‘Of course it is,’ Eve snaps.

Villanelle presses her lips into a flat, red-stained line. ‘Are you going to untie me?’

Eve looks at Raymond, who’s gone still now, his limp hand still twisted up to touch the knife handle. Dead. Eve takes a deep breath. Dead.

‘Eve?’

Eve makes her way over to Villanelle, leaning down to scratch at the tape around one wrist. The movement brings their faces close together, and Eve leans down lower than necessary to see what she’s doing, trying to ignore Villanelle’s gaze on her. She runs her fingers across Villanelle’s wrist as she frees it, the glue of the duct tape still trapped in the fine hairs there.

Villanelle doesn’t say anything, her hand hovering as if to take Eve’s, before she moves it across to pick at her other wrists. Eve kneels to free her legs. They’re easier, the ends of the tape not as stuck down. Eve pushes herself back, sitting on the ground with her knees to her chest, feeling filthy and cold.

Villanelle makes to stand, her legs shaking, before she sags back into the seat. She’s looking at Eve, her eyebrows screwed up in something close to concern. Eve wonders where she learnt how to mimic that expression.

‘We still need to leave,’ she says. Her voice is almost slurred, and she coughs.

‘Can I just have a minute?’ Eve snaps, sniffing.

Villanelle wipes her hand across her mouth, turns and spits blood at Raymond’s feet. ‘He better not have had something.’

‘Like a family?’ Eve swallows a sudden swell of tears.

‘I was thinking more of diseases.’

Eve presses her forehead to her knees, trying to take deep breaths. She’d done yoga a couple of times a few years ago, and her instructor had told her to visualise a space just for her, when she had her head between her knees. She can’t imagine anywhere but this house, this dining room.

She can hear Villanelle moving, looks up to see the other woman leaning against the kitchen counter, using it to prop her up as she moves towards the hall she’d forced Bill down.

‘Where are you going?’

‘I want to lay down,’ Villanelle says. She pushes herself away from the counter, catches herself on the hallway wall leading towards the bedroom.

‘We can’t stay here,’ Eve says. Not with two bodies.

‘Oh, is your pity party over already?’ Villanelle continues to shuffle down the hall.

Eve surges upright, grabbing Villanelle’s shoulder and tugging it back so that her back hits the wall. Villanelle raises her eyebrows as Eve leaves her hand on her shoulder, nails digging in. ‘Don’t make fun of me,’ Eve says. Her voice is shaking, and she hopes Villanelle can tell it’s with anger rather than tears.

Villanelle smirks. ‘Or what?’ she says.

‘I could kill you,’ Eve says. ‘And I would be a hero.’

Villanelle’s dark eyes bore into Eve’s, searching. ‘Go on, then.’ She doesn’t look scared, or resigned, or challenging. She looks interested.

Eve breathes out, shaky, her eyes drifting down to Villanelle’s stomach, the way her clothes are cut around the wound like a bad fashion statement. Villanelle isn’t moving, her eyes on Eve’s face, waiting.

Eve grabs Villanelle’s hand, slings her arm over her shoulder. ‘Come on, then.’

‘Where are we going?’ Villanelle tucks her hand against Eve’s clavicle, fingers making a fist like she doesn’t want to touch Eve.

‘Bed.’

‘Great.’

‘I’ll drop you.’

Villanelle doesn’t say anything. Eve had expected her to melt into her side, but she seems awkward, like she’s trying to keep distance between them. Perhaps the death threat put a damper on all of that.

Eve manages to get them into the bedroom, Villanelle heavier than she would have expected, and she deposits the other woman on the edge of the bed.

Villanelle eases herself down slowly, using her hands and elbows to lower herself, her breathing erratic. Her legs dangle off the edge of the bed, but Villanelle doesn’t seem capable of moving now that she’s laying down, her eyes screwed shut, a hand over her wound.

‘Give me a minute,’ she says.

Eve wonders if it’s a display of weakness for her benefit, or if Villanelle truly doesn’t feel threatened, despite everything. Out of the corner of her eye, she spots a suitcase, tucked by the wardrobe. She kneels beside it, opening it to find some of her clothes folded neatly inside. She can smell her detergent on them, pulls out a shirt to sniff it, wanting so badly to be home. She imagines curling up in bed with a glass of wine and a book, imagines falling asleep with no cuts or bruises, with nobody watching her. A smear of red appears on the shirt, and she drops it, pulling her stained hands back to her chest.

She glances up at Villanelle. Villanelle’s eyes are still closed, though more peacefully now, her breathing deeper.

Eve watches her for a moment, uncurling her fingers. Villanelle is all blood, she thinks. If Eve touched her, it would be impossible to know who it had come from. Eve couldn’t stain her.

She looks at her hands. She needs to be clean.

Eve staggers back out into the hallway, opening the door across the hall. It’s another bedroom. Bill’s hat sits on the end of the rumpled bed, and she loses her breath again, gasping into the quiet. Bill is still laying out in the dining room, and his wife, his child, don’t know.

Eve closes the door, hard, the sound seeming to echo in the otherwise silent house. She continues down the hall, opening the next door to find a bathroom, neat if a bit outdated, the tiles a strange pink colour. She closes the door behind her, locks it. The shower is small, sunk into the corner of the room like an after-thought, while the toilet gets centre-stage.

Eve turns on the shower, undressing quickly despite her shaking hands. She makes the water too hot, but she likes the way it makes her skin feel new, the way her joints unstiffen under the spray.  She scrubs at her wrists, removing the glue, the soap stinging the cuts in her hands. It’s nice. Grounding. There’s a tiny bottle of shampoo, as if she’s in a hotel, and she dumps it all directly onto her hair, rubbing at her scalp, fingers getting caught in the knots.

She’s not sure how long she spends getting clean, but her fingers are wrinkled by the time she gets out, like she’s aged years in the last two days. She towels herself dry in front of the mirror. It’s fogged up, and she looms behind the mist like a ghost, a blob of black and tan swimming in the glass.

She wipes a hand through the condensation, stares at her own face. She looks normal, apart from the red under her eyes. She doesn’t look like a monster.

But then, she’d thought the same about Villanelle.

She realises she hasn’t brought any of her clothes with her, and wraps the towel tight around her chest before venturing back to the bedroom.

Villanelle is still passed out in the middle of the bed. Eve opens the suitcase, pausing as Villanelle mutters something.

She looks at her, watching as the other woman twists on the bed, brow furrowed.

Eve continues to pick out clothes, picturing Niko packing it for her, all neat folds, her comfy underwear packed under her tighter ones. She’d told him once about the difference between comfortable underwear and professional underwear, and he’d just laughed. But he’d remembered.

She picks the comfortable pair, the ratty old bra. She doesn’t need to dress up for anyone, doesn’t need to pretend she’s on top of things, that she’s holding it together. Villanelle wouldn’t be fooled, for one thing.

She gets dressed back in the bathroom, and sits on the lid of the toilet for a long time, staring off into space. She should move, work out how to get them out of there. She should go poke Villanelle, get her up, get them both to something safer than the safe house. Her mind goes over the first steps again and again: leave the bathroom, wake Villanelle. Leave the bathroom, wake Villanelle.

She can hear Villanelle’s voice rising and falling as she continues talking to some imaginary enemy, and Eve thinks she should probably go check on her. She’s been drugged, after all, and god knows what that meant in the context of the Red Room, of Russia. Villanelle had seemed coherent enough, but sluggish, so perhaps it only affected her movement? Although that could be the bullet.

 She doesn’t want to move. The bathroom is clean, and smells of flowers rather than blood.

A strange sound echoes through the house, and for a second Eve thinks that Villanelle’s vocal range has managed to transcend normal human bounds, before she realises it’s a phone.

Ringing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> considering I thought we would be here in half the time, thanks for sticking with me.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Villanelle is not having the best time.

Villanelle doesn’t feel well. The room seems to move around her, and it’s bad with her eyes closed but terrible with her eyes open. She’s been shot before, but the pain isn’t easy to get used to or move past, an angry red thing in the forefront of her mind, wrapping around her limbs. More than that, more than the hole in her stomach, she can feel something creeping in behind the pain, some white thing dragging itself up her body. It’s enough to make her limbs feel limp. Her eyes throb, her cheek and jaw ache where Raymond had hit her, and her mouth tastes like shit.

All in all, it’s been a pretty unsuccessful day, she thinks. At least on her part. Eve’s had a bit more luck.

She wonders if Anna is coming. Anna, to come and speak some control back into her as though she could, as though Villanelle would roll over for her again. For someone who’d moulded Villanelle as though from clay, cutting away the things Villanelle wouldn’t need but wanted, Anna doesn’t understand her very well. Trapped in her body, she imagines Anna leaning over her, stroking her hair, telling her she loves her. She imagines Anna saying she doesn’t, letting them take Villanelle away to the dark rooms where the white thing burrows through her heart, her brain, taking.

She doesn’t feel like she’s slept, but it does feel like she’s woken when something starts jingling. Pain stabs her as her stomach muscles contract, her body trying to move, and her eyes feel full of sand as she opens them. The light is still on, right overhead, and she squeezes her eyes shut again.

The phone keeps ringing. _La Marseillaise_.

‘Eve?’ Villanelle says, her mouth too dry to get the word out properly. She swallows. ‘Eve!’ she yells. ‘Phone!’

She hears the door open, opens her eyes a sliver to see Eve enter the room.

‘I heard it,’ Eve says. The phone stops ringing, and Villanelle puts her head back down. ‘Where was it coming from?’

Villanelle points at the side table furthest from the door, hears Eve walk over to it. ‘I don’t – ‘

‘Look behind.’ Villanelle licks her lips, feeling Raymond flake off them. She screws up her nose.

There’s a scrape as the table is pushed out from the wall, a pause. ‘Is this yours?’

‘Yes.’ Villanelle had tucked it behind the table for safekeeping, not wanting anyone to take it off. Admittedly, she’d presumed she would be back to retrieve it much sooner than she had, and she’d also thought it was on silent.

‘When did you have time to get a charger?’ Eve sounds annoyed, which Villanelle thinks is a bit unfair considering how upset she’d acted about the phone dying in the first place.

‘I found one in your bag,’ Villanelle says. ‘Lucky it fit.’

‘You went through my bag?’

Villanelle can tell from her tone that Eve is annoyed about this too. She sighs. ‘You’re a hard woman to please, Eve.’

‘Villanelle. You went through my bag?’ Something smacks against Villanelle’s stomach, sending a jolt of pain through her; she flinches and hisses, opens her eyes to see the phone sliding off her stomach. ‘You made a big deal about being worried about me, but you had time to go through my things?’

‘Eve, I am very tired, let’s not fight right now,’ Villanelle says, tilting her head back to look at Eve upside down. She attempts a gracious smile, before remembering that she still has blood around her mouth, and her face feels hot and misshapen from Raymond’s hits. Perhaps she should play that angle more – she adds another wince for good measure. ‘Anyway, how was I to know it was yours?’

Eve’s eyes widen. ‘You’re so fucking annoying,’ she says.

Villanelle pauses, watching Eve’s face, wondering how hurt she should act. She decides to be the bigger person, instead. ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

Eve scoffs, shaking her head, running her fingers through her hair. Villanelle watches, waits.

‘Who called?’ Eve says, waving a hand at the phone, abandoning some of her anger just as Villanelle hoped.

Villanelle looks at the screen. ‘Konstantin.’ She smiles. It’s nice of him to check on her.

‘Who’s that?’

‘A friend,’ Villanelle says.

Eve scoffs again, an unattractive sound, and Villanelle can tell she said the wrong thing again. ‘How many times have you endangered his life?’

‘Only the once,’ Villanelle says. Eve roll her eyes, and she finds she doesn’t care if Eve is mad. ‘He handled it better than you, though. And that time was actually my fault.’  

‘What is wrong with you?’ Eve throws her hands in the air.

Villanelle shrugs, calm. ‘Aren’t you the psychologist?’

Eve scrubs at her face, digging her fingertips into her temples. Villanelle waits for her to yell some more. ‘Can he help us?’ Eve says, instead.

‘Eh. Probably.’

‘Then call him back,’ Eve snaps.

Villanelle notices that Eve’s hands are shaking. ‘Are you alright?’

‘No, of course not,’ Eve says.

Villanelle tries to sit up, struggling with the plushness of the mattress and the way her stomach muscles don’t want to help. Eve watches, her arms crossed. She ends up propped on her elbows. ‘It’s OK, to be scared.’

‘I’m not scared,’ Eve says. ‘I’m…’ Villanelle waits, and Eve finally says, ‘Don’t act like you understand.’

Villanelle doesn’t let herself frown, despite the way the words burrow in and release coldness through her ribs. ‘Why wouldn’t I?’

‘You don’t feel things,’ Eve says. ‘Not like me. You can’t, or you wouldn’t be able to live with yourself.’

Villanelle tries not to let her face show that the words are twisting in her heart. ‘You don’t know what I feel.’ She thinks of Anna, of love and fear and anger and happiness and all the other emotions she can name, the ones that carve a hole in her chest deeper and more painful than the bullet.

‘I know what you _can’t_ feel,’ Eve says, and Villanelle thinks of guilt. It seems unfair to be defined by one thing, but she’s used to that, although it’s more often the whole murderer thing that people get hung up about.

She relaxes. If it’s just guilt Eve is talking about, there’s no problem. ‘You should be nicer to me.’

Eve presses her lips together, but her exhale is less aggravated than earlier. ‘Not right now.’

Villanelle shakes her head, is about to answer when the phone starts ringing again. Eve waves a hand at it, and Villanelle picks up.

‘Konstantin!’

Eve rolls her eyes.  

‘I thought you were dead,’ Konstantin says.

‘How are you? How is the family?’

‘You don’t call, you don’t text. I thought I would have to write an obituary.’

‘Then you are an idiot.’ Villanelle sniffs. ‘Raymond is the dead one.’ Eve sits on the end of the bed, her back to Villanelle. If Villanelle wanted, she could reach out and stroke her back, comfort her through that waste of energy guilt.

There’s a long pause. ‘Ah. I told you to be more careful.’

‘You are very clever,’ Villanelle says.

‘Are you alright?’

Villanelle scrunches up her nose. ‘I’ve been a little bit shot.’

‘A little bit?’

‘I would probably say a moderate amount, but I don’t want to be dramatic.’ Eve and Konstantin snort at the same time, and she scowls.

‘Where are you?’

Villanelle purses her lips. ‘We’re just outside of Paris.’

‘We?’

‘Eve and I,’ Villanelle looks away as Eve catches her eye, her face stretching with incredulity. Eve had told Bill they were together – it was only fair that Konstantin got to know.

Konstantin sighs, a long, heavy, exasperated sound that crackles the phone. ‘What have you done?’

‘Why is everyone blaming me? It is Raymond’s fault. He was obsessed with me, you know that.’

Konstantin sighs at her again. ‘Are you dying?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘I’ll send someone to you. Let me know where you end up. Don’t die.’

‘I’ll try my best Konstantin, you know me.’

He hangs up on her, and Villanelle takes the phone from her ear. It’s already at ninety-two percent charged. Pathetic.

‘Do you want to call someone before we go?’ Villanelle says.

Eve stares at the ground for a long moment before shaking her head. Villanelle wonders if she should say she has Eve’s husband on there, isn’t sure if it will be appreciated.

‘Are you ready for another road trip?’ Villanelle pokes Eve in the back and Eve turns her head to look at her. Eve’s eyes are sad. Villanelle wants to say something profound, something that will cheer Eve up. ‘You’ll get to drive,’ she tries.

‘You look terrible.’

Villanelle frowns. ‘Rude.’

‘You’re covered in blood.’

Villanelle looks down at herself, at the tatters of her clothes, the way the blood has stiffened the fabric. ‘If anyone asks, we’ll say I’m an artist.’

Eve sighs, pushing herself up from the bed and digging through her suitcase. ‘Did you see anything you liked while you were snooping through this?’ She drags out a pair of jeans, the knees sagging outwards.

‘Oh, I couldn’t,’ Villanelle says. ‘Not your good jeans.’

‘Asshole,’ Eve snaps. ‘You should shower.’

‘We don’t have time for that.’

‘But you had time to sleep for an hour,’ Eve mutters, tossing items of clothing from the bag like confetti.

Villanelle wrinkles her nose. ‘No, I haven’t.’ A stretched, faded pair of underwear sails past her face and she watches it fall to the ground, wondering if Eve has a pair like that on. They’re quickly covered by a coat.

‘Yeah.’

Villanelle snaps her attention back to Eve. The line of her back is tense, shoulders held rigid. ‘What – Eve, that’s very dangerous. What if someone else had come?’

‘I guess I’d kill them,’ Eve says, flat.

Villanelle raises her eyebrows. ‘Well. Alright, then.’

‘I’m going to get something to clean your face,’ Eve says. Her face is still locked in that pale scowl. ‘You get changed.’

Villanelle groans, reaching out a hand for the clothes Eve’s laid out. She runs a finger over the coarse fibres, making a face to herself. Disgusting.

The room is very quiet with Eve gone, reminding her how tired she is, how something is still tugging at her body. She shifts on the bed, closes her eyes as her stomach protests.

‘Villanelle?’

She opens her eyes to find Eve hovering over her. ‘That was quick,’ she says.

Eve sighs, runs a hand through that hair. ‘I wasn’t quick. Are you feeling worse?’

‘No,’ Villanelle says, putting her palm against the wound.

Eve presses her lips together, then reaches out to Villanelle. ‘Come on.’

Villanelle allows herself to be pulled upright, trying not to show how much it hurts. Her head swims, and she thinks that maybe laying down was a bad idea.

Eve doesn’t waste time, attacking her face with the wet corner of the towel, the fabric scratching against Villanelle’s skin.

Villanelle manages to push her away. ‘Are you trying to waterboard me?’

Eve rolls her eyes but dabs at her face more delicately, face solemn with concentration. Villanelle doesn’t move as Eve tries to get the dried blood from around the cut on her forehead, studying Eve’s eyes. They’re red-rimmed, her mouth pinched tight against whatever is happening in her head.

‘How do I look?’ Villanelle says as Eve draws back.

‘Like you’ve been beaten.’ Eve sighs. ‘But we can’t do much about that.’ Eve sets the towel down, pulling the clothes closer to Villanelle.

Villanelle takes a deep breath and pulls off her shirt with effort, her skin raising goose-bumps as it’s exposed to the air, despite how warm she feels. She reaches around to unhook her bra with one hand, pulling the straps from her shoulders and letting it fall to the ground. Eve goes red and looks away, moving to start repacking her bag. Villanelle smiles as she takes the towel and runs it across her stomach, her boobs, under her arms, trying to feel cleaner. It only helps a little, the blood and sweat stuck to the fine hairs of her body, caked into her creases.

She reaches for the top. ‘Is this from Target?’

‘There’s nothing wrong with Target,’ Eve says, which just means yes.

Villanelle pulls the ugly turtleneck sweater on. It’s an awful dark green, tight around her neck and shoulders, itchy across her bare breasts. ‘No, Target is great.’

Villanelle slides to the very edge of the bed, struggling to get her pants down. Her irritated huffing makes Eve look over and she comes to help, that blush still staining her cheeks as she tugs Villanelle’s pants down.

‘Oh my god, no,’ Eve says, as Villanelle hooks her thumb in the waist band of her underwear, making to take them off too.

Villanelle raises an eyebrow. ‘They’re dirty.’

‘Well, I don’t want you going commando in my jeans,’ Eve says. ‘I don’t think I could wear them again.’

‘You want to _keep_ these?’ Villanelle screws her face up in exaggerated disgust.

Eve rolls her eyes. ‘Fine, whatever, you can have them then. My gift to you. A jacket for some jeans.’

‘That’s hardly fair unless these jeans somehow cost six-hundred dollars.’

Eve chokes. ‘That jacket – ‘

‘I really don’t want your dollar store jeans,’ Villanelle says.

‘Don’t be a dick. They’re comfy, even if they aren’t insanely overpriced.’

‘I’m just telling you how I _feel._ ’

Eve just shakes her head and scrunches the legs of the jeans up, guiding Villanelle’s feet into the leg holes. Villanelle lifts her hips with a grunt, and Eve manages to slide the jeans up. They sit down on her hips, and she’s frustrated with how tight they are, how unflattering to her body. She struggles to do up the button. ‘I look like shit.’

‘You look normal.’

‘Wow, thanks.’

Eve just sighs, walking around the room and grabbing the phone charger. ‘Are we going?’

‘Sure.’ Villanelle takes a deep breath, getting herself upright.

Eve zips up the bag with some difficulty, poking the leg or arm of some offending piece of clothing into the bag, getting the zip caught on something. Villanelle watches her from her spot leaning against the wall, tugging at the neck of the turtleneck.

Eve finally manages to get the bag under control, and walks over to Villanelle. ‘Come on,’ she says, wrapping her arm around Villanelle’s waist again. Villanelle drapes her arm over Eve’s shoulder, and they stagger up the hall.

They don’t say anything as they pass Raymond and Bill, but Villanelle notices the way Eve’s breathing gets ragged, the way her shoulders start to shake. She pats Eve’s bicep a couple of times, thinks maybe she should offer her a hug or something like in the movies but she doesn’t know how to initiate one as herself. She could maybe channel Faith, channel someone else, but she isn’t sure if that’s who Eve needs, right now.

They make it to the front door and Eve opens it with difficulty, struggling under Villanelle’s weight. Villanelle is grateful she doesn’t mention it – feels unattractive enough at the moment.

‘Where did you park it?’ Eve says as they start down the driveway.

‘Side,’ Villanelle grunts, pointing to the hedge. She’d parked the car behind the big hedge to the right of the house, up a short track that led to a large, empty block.

She’s given up comforting Eve, her entire body shaking with the effort of staying upright. She points, and Eve helps them shuffle in that direction, back down the driveway where the slope means every step is longer and harder than she’d like.

They get to the bottom and Villanelle hunches over, panting, while Eve gasps for air herself. Lucky the road is quiet or they would make quite a pair.

Eve has to practically drag her up the short hill, their feet sliding a little in the mud, and they’re both huffing by the time they reach the car. It has a lean to it, and Villanelle wonders how soft the ground is here, hopes they’ll be able to get out.

Eve unlocks the car, and deposits Villanelle at the passenger door, opening it for her with difficulty, the lean making the door try and swing closed. Villanelle looks at how low the seat is, tries to work out the angles.

‘You should have gone for something more practical,’ Eve says, holding out an arm for Villanelle to grab.

Villanelle glares at her, ignores her offer of help in favour of grabbing the roof of the car, trying to lower herself into the seat. ‘It’s fine.’ Her thighs are trembling, and her hand slips, sending her crashing into the seat. ‘Shit.’

Eve closes the door behind her, walking around to the driver’s seat and getting in only slightly more easily. She checks the mirrors, adjusting the rear-view. Villanelle watches her.  

‘Can you get me some Skittles?’

Eve glances at her. ‘Really?’

Villanelle nods, and Eve reaches into the footwell, places a packet in Villanelle’s lap.

‘Just like old times,’ Villanelle says, opening the top and crunching a couple between her teeth.

Eve wrinkles her nose, watching her eat for a moment before turning to face the front. ‘Once I’ve dropped you off, that’s it,’ Eve says. ‘We’re done. I’m going to go home.’ She starts the car, and turns down the radio.

‘Oh.’ Villanelle picks up a couple of Skittles, lets them fall back into the bag.

Eve waits a moment before continuing, as though she wants Villanelle to say something. ‘I won’t say anything to anyone about you. I won’t tell them what you look like.’

‘Isn’t it your job?’

Eve breathes out a shaky laugh. ‘I’m going to quit. I just want to be left alone.’

‘Why?’ Villanelle frowns.

‘This is … too much.’ Eve gestures right at Villanelle, and Villanelle is hit with anger, the hot cold feeling spreading through her chest and down her arms.

‘None of this is my fault,’ Villanelle says.

‘It’s all your fault,’ Eve says, with a slight smile. Villanelle doesn’t know what it means, if it’s fond or incredulous or mocking. Probably mocking.

‘You’re the one who came to Paris, you’re the one who looked for me,’ Villanelle says.

‘You put me on Raymond’s radar,’ Eve says, frustration colouring her voice.

‘You put yourself on mine,’ Villanelle says.  

Eve shakes her head. ‘I didn’t.’

‘You wanted to find me. I gave you what you wanted.’ Villanelle points at Eve, wanting her to understand.

‘No, you didn’t.’ Eve pushes Villanelle’s finger away. ‘You just did what you wanted.’

Villanelle shrugs with her whole body, pressing her hand to her stomach. ‘So, I wanted to meet you, and you wanted to meet me. What’s the problem?’

‘Don’t act dumb,’ Eve snaps. ‘The problem is people got killed.

‘Which wasn’t my fault. I’m not the reason you’re upset right now – Raymond is. And you paid him back.’

‘Don’t talk about it like that!’ Eve thumps a hand against the steering wheel. ‘I’m upset with you, not him.’

‘What could I have done to avoid any of that?’ Villanelle says. ‘He’s the one who – ’

‘You could have been more careful, you arrogant shit!’ Eve takes her hands off the wheel, thumping a fist against the car window. ‘God, you can’t just mess with my life. Why won’t you admit you just came in to mess everything up? Because it would be funny?’

‘I didn’t. I’m not the problem,’ Villanelle says.

‘You are,’ Eve says. ‘You are.’

‘I’m not.’ Villanelle wants to reach over, to strangle Eve, to stop her from saying such things. To kiss her, to feel all that energy under her lips, her hands, the way none of it is fear. ‘I didn’t have a choice.’

‘Of course you did,’ Eve snaps. ‘You just keep making the wrong ones.’

‘All I did was say hello to you, you’re the one who stalked me,’ Villanelle says.

Eve snorts. ‘Like you didn’t plan that.’

‘Plan on you being a creep? Plan on you following me, obsessing over me, watching me? Having _dates_ with me?’ Villanelle can see Eve getting angrier and angrier, the colour rising in her cheeks.

‘Don’t start with that,’ Eve says. ‘You’re a serial killer.’

‘Yes, I am.’ Villanelle leans forwards, grinning. ‘You want to see?’

‘I’m one person away from being a serial killer, now,’ Eve says, her face now blank, tight, unmoving. ‘Go on.’

Villanelle tries not to let Eve see her bluff has been called, can’t talk fast enough to cover the awkward pause. ‘You first.’

Eve shakes her head. ‘Whatever.’ She doesn’t look angry anymore, just sort of sad again, downcast.

Villanelle folds her arms, sucks in a breath. Eve’s sad little face makes arguing the less attractive course of action. ‘I just wanted a friend, OK? None of this was about ruining your life.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ Eve says.

Villanelle groans. ‘Well, can you stop being mad at me anyway? It’s getting boring.’

‘That’s not how feelings work.’ Eve’s voice is almost snide.

‘Stop talking to me about feelings!’ Villanelle scrabbles with the car door.

‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m going to walk.’ Villanelle manages to get the door open, but it swings back shut.

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Eve says, as Villanelle gets the door open again, wedging her foot in the gap. ‘Hey!’ Eve grabs the back of the ugly turtleneck, and Villanelle tries to swat her away, only succeeds in pulling at her stitches.

‘Let go.’

Eve sighs, but her grip only tightens. ‘I said I would drop you off.’

Villanelle pushes at the door with her foot. The angle is killing her. ‘I don’t want to go with you. Being alone would be better than being yelled at for things you didn’t do.’ She tries to make it sound flippant, can’t quite manage it.

Eve pulls her back a little. ‘Fine. I’ll stop being mad at you.’

Villanelle pauses in her efforts to get out of the car. ‘Really?’

‘I’ll try.’

Villanelle turns to look over her shoulder at Eve, lifts her foot with effort so that the door clicks shut. Eve lets go of her shirt and she settles back in the seat. ‘I do understand feelings.’

‘OK.’

Villanelle can’t be bothered lying. ‘Mostly. Most of them, anyway. The important ones.’

Eve shrugs. ‘They can be hard.’

 ‘They’re always hard.’

Eve sighs. ‘Yeah, I guess they are.’ She scrubs at her face, and her body sags down in the seat as if the only thing keeping her upright had been how much she wanted to yell at Villanelle. ‘I can’t believe I killed someone.’

Villanelle shifts in her seat, trying to get comfortable. ‘He was going to kill me, so don’t feel too bad.’

Eve looks at her, eyes shining with unshed tears. ‘It was self-defence, wasn’t it?’

‘Basically,’ Villanelle says. ‘He would have killed you. Eventually.’

‘Yeah.’ Eve nods, once. ‘Yeah.’

Eve reaches out, puts her hand over Villanelle’s, squeezes. Maybe Eve just needed someone to yell at. She’s so beautiful, Villanelle thinks, so fierce and strong and intelligent, so aggravating and hurtful. Villanelle settles back in her seat, feeling her tiredness weigh on her eyelids, her body relaxing and hovering on the edge of sleep.

Eve takes her hand back, ending the moment, and puts the car in reverse. The car rolls back, shuddering, a scraping noise coming from Eve’s side. Eve stops the car, looking at Villanelle.

‘What was that?’

Villanelle shrugs, and Eve gets out of the car, squatting to examine something on the side of the car. She can hear swearing, before Eve ducks her head back into the car. ‘Um. The tires are slashed on this side.’

‘Seriously?’ Villanelle groans. ‘How did you not notice?’  

Eve has the manners to look embarrassed. ‘I wasn’t looking, was I?’

‘Eve.’ Villanelle presses her palms into her eyes, trying to stay calm. She has to get back out of the car, she has to walk somewhere else, but she can’t think beyond wanting to go to sleep.

‘What do we do?’

Villanelle waves a hand. ‘We get another car.’

‘Where?’

‘I don’t know, the dealership,’ Villanelle snaps. ‘You find one this time.’ She opens her eyes, watches Eve walk around to the passenger side door, watches her open it. Eve squats down to eye level with Villanelle.

They’re very close. She can smell the flowers in Eve’s hair, the cleanliness of her skin a contrast to the sweat on Villanelle’s.

‘We could catch the bus?’ Eve says. ‘I saw a sign for it up the road.’

‘You saw that but not the tires?’ Villanelle snaps. ‘We’re not catching the bus.’

She would die before she caught the bus.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> why are they both so dumb


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They get to sleep.

Eve tries not to show how heavy Villanelle is getting on the way to the bench, Villanelle’s arm almost bruising with the way it tugs down against Eve’s skin. The bag of Skittles bumps against Eve’s chest as they walk, Villanelle’s knuckles white around them.

Eve can’t feel her fingers properly. She hasn’t been able to feel them for a couple of hours, now, just this faint tingle in the tips. She’s assumed it was a heart attack, now she thinks it’s panic. It’s almost like there’s two of her – one that is so far beyond emotion that it would be scary, the other that’s so immersed in her feelings that it’s drowning.

‘You’re taking advantage of me,’ Villanelle manages, her teeth gritted together. Her voice cuts through the fog in Eve’s brain.

‘How?’

‘You know I would never agree to this if I wasn’t dying.’

‘You aren’t dying.’

‘Not yet. Who knows what I will get from the bus seat? Tuberculosis. Syphilis. Typhoid.’ Villanelle shrugs, still clutching at her wound, and Eve nearly tips with the shift in weight.

Eve clutches Villanelle’s waist tighter, leaning to the side to keep them upright. ‘I think you’ll be fine, Mary.’

‘We could have driven it,’ Villanelle says, pausing to catch her breath. Eve wishes she would shut up to catch her breath instead, but it doesn’t appear to work that way. ‘It only ruins the suspension and we aren’t paying for that.’

Eve sighs. ‘It would be a little attention-getting, don’t you think? Not to mention dangerous.’

‘More dangerous than taking the bus when people want to kill us?’ Villanelle waves her arm up and down the empty street.

Eve thought about it for a moment. ‘They can’t kill us in public.’

Villanelle laughs, winces. ‘Don’t make me laugh, it hurts.’

‘I was being serious,’ Eve says. She clenches her fist once, twice, trying to get her hands working again. She feels clumsy.

Villanelle pulls a face. ‘Mario died in public.’

Eve feels like she’s been slapped with the memory, like she can’t breathe. Her chest hurts with the pressure building up in her heart, her lungs, her breastplate caving outwards. She wonders if it’s possible to be torn apart by her own feelings. Marius. Bill. It feels like she can’t remember them both at the same time and keep functioning, like it’s either remember them or keep her legs working.

‘Eve?’ Villanelle’s hand pats at her cheek a couple of times, as if she’s trying to wake her up, and Eve looks at her, pushes her hand away.

‘What?’ Her voice is loud in her own ears, and she still can’t catch her breath.

Villanelle studies her, then takes a shuffling step forwards, pulling Eve with her. It feels kinder than talking about it again.  

…

Villanelle falls asleep on the bus-stop bench, her head on Eve’s thigh, the Skittles clutched to her chest like a bear. Eve would like to move, the wooden bench designed to be as uncomfortable as possible, but Villanelle looks peaceful and as much as she shouldn’t care, she doesn’t want to disturb her. Eve looks at the phone, checking the time. Five fourteen in the morning. The phone is at sixty-three percent, and Eve sighs, tucking it back into her pocket.

What a fucking day. Well, night.

She feels better for being out of the house, for being clean, for the way that Villanelle seems to have decided to stop poking at Eve’s emotional wounds. She feels worse for feeling better, and the crushing feeling seems to come and go every few minutes, ready to drag her down into a ball on the side of the road.

She just has to breathe, she just has to keep breathing.

Villanelle shifts, mutters something, and Eve rubs her shoulder for something to do, for something _nice_ to do. She feels sick and small and mean, like she’s become a person she doesn’t understand. Or rather a person she does understand but can’t like.

She looks at Villanelle and thinks about how she likes her. She hates her a little as well, but if that were most of it, Eve would have left her behind. Eve knows that about herself now, that she’s capable of letting someone die in pain. Of doing it to them herself.

Villanelle is unusual and strange and savage, and funny and interesting and chatty. Perhaps Eve can be mean and loved, too. She turns the thought over and over, watching Villanelle sleep against her.

She thinks she should probably call Niko, hear him absolve her as she knows he would, hear him tell her just to keep herself safe and come home. He’s probably worried – who knows what Bill told him about her need for a second suitcase and her incommunicado act. Yes, she should call him and hear how wonderful she is, how precious, how fragile, how brave, and she should go home and forget any of this happened.

She doesn’t call him.

…

The bus comes about forty-five minutes into Eve’s carnival ride of thoughts. Eve sticks out a hand to flag them down, poking Villanelle’s shoulder with the other. Villanelle sits up like a zombie, her arms stiff and movements jerky, the noise coming from her throat like a death rattle. Eve helps her up, and Villanelle wraps an arm around her stomach, face pale.

By the time the driver opens the door and stares at them dubiously she’s arranged her face into a self-deprecating smile.

‘Ce qui vous est arrive?’

‘J'étais très saoul la nuit dernière,’ Villanelle says, holding a hand to her head.

The bus driver grins. ‘Est-ce que ça valait le coup?’

‘Non.’

He laughs, gesturing at the sign.

‘Money?’ Villanelle says to Eve, letting her go to place her hand against the bus.

Eve blanches. ‘I – hang on.’ She lifts her bag, putting it on the bench. Niko normally puts her valuables in the side pockets, and she opens them all, searching, before digging out a couple of notes. The bus driver looks impatient, now, snatches the Euros from her. Villanelle has already boarded and is making her way slowly down the aisle. There are more people than Eve expected, and she wheels her bag along, clutching her change to her chest. Nobody looks at her, but quite a few look at Villanelle, at her bruised and cut face and her ill-fitting clothes.

Villanelle lowers herself like an old lady into one of the seats towards the back, putting her face to the glass. Eve hasn’t sat before the bus takes off again, and she falls into the seat next to Villanelle.

‘What did you tell him?’ Eve whispers.

‘That I’m very hungover,’ Villanelle says, trying to get comfortable in the limited space. Eve settles back into the seat, her bag wedged hard between her knees and the seat in front.

Villanelle’s eyes sag shut, and she falls back asleep, her head tipped back over the seat, her throat exposed to the world. Eve can see her pulse fluttering the skin just above her collarbone. She wonders how Villanelle can trust her enough to fall asleep like this, so vulnerable.

Villanelle’s breathing changes, a loud snore ripping from her nose or her throat. Eve blinks, and watches as she does it again. The man in front of them turns to glare, and Eve tugs Villanelle sideways, settling the other woman’s head against her shoulder. Villanelle shifts, her hair tickling Eve’s chin, but the other passengers seem mollified.

It’s almost comforting, and Eve watches the countryside pass them by. The further she gets from the bodies, the more she can breathe.

…

‘Where are we?’ Villanelle says as Eve nudges her awake. She looks awful, her pupils back to normal but her skin clammy, her lips pale and cracked. Her breath stinks like vomit and sugar, and Eve leans away from her.

‘Orleans,’ Eve says. ‘We need to get to the train.’

Eve pushes her bag out into the aisle, watching as Villanelle grabs the seat in front to haul her body up and out of their row.

‘Do you need – ’

Villanelle waves her off, her body bent forwards as she stands. ‘I’ll follow.’

Eve gets off the bus, watching Villanelle struggle down the stairs. The bus driver watches her with a faint smile.

The bus depo is large, and someone says something in French over the loudspeaker as they enter the terminal from the parking side. Eve drags them through the terminal and out into the open air, feeling the sweat from Villanelle’s back soaking through the turtleneck. Nobody here seems to notice Villanelle, their eyes deliberately sliding past as if they might ask for money. Perfect.

Eve looks around for some kind of map, when her eyes are drawn to a sign across the road advertising a _hôtel._ She nearly falls over at the thought of being able to lie down in a bed and sleep, and she starts pulling Villanelle towards it.

‘Let’s just stay here, tonight,’ Eve says. If Villanelle says no, then Eve will give her some money and send her on her way. She doesn’t care about the intrigue anymore, about Konstantin’s friend, about Anna or the Red Room or the multiple assassins apparently coming after them. She just wants some sleep. Villanelle just nods. She’s still gripping the Skittles like a lifeline, her knuckles white.

It’s probably two-hundred metres to the hotel but it feels like they’ve walked several miles by the time they make it across the street, Villanelle’s feet dragging against the ground. She’s slowed down a lot since her nap, and Eve doesn’t know if it’s just lack of adrenaline or if she’s getting worse.

The front door is heavy in the way so many of them are, and Eve puts her shoulder to it, pulling Villanelle along with her other arm. Eve makes a noise as she’s pushing it like an Olympic weight-lifter, or one of those loud women that plays tennis. The woman at the front desk watches them struggle with a mild curiosity on her face, unmoving, and Eve feels like yelling about young people. They manage to slip inside, the door closing behind them with an air of finality, and Eve hopes she doesn’t have to open it again today.

They shuffle towards the front desk and lean on the front desk as one.

‘Do you have a spare room?’ Eve says. She’s panting, and she tries to swallow it down, to not show how exhausted she feels by their walk.

The woman runs her eyes up and down Villanelle. Her nametag reads _Elodie._ ‘Oui,’ she says, slow. ‘Are you… well?’

‘I was beaten,’ Villanelle says in a strong English accent. It makes Eve think uncomfortably of Niko. He would be at work, now, if he’s not waiting by the phone for news of her. ‘By my ex-boyfriend. He’s jealous.’ She pats at Eve clumsily, her palm thudding against Eve’s shoulder. Eve tries to grab her hand, but Villanelle has already taken it away, so Eve ends up brushing her own shoulder.

‘How terrible,’ Elodie says, her accent making the word sound lovely. ‘Nobody should be hurt for love.’ Eve can see she’s already planning to tell the story to her friends after work.

Villanelle smiles in a way that’s clearly meant to say _aren’t I brave?_ ‘So please, don’t tell anyone we’re here,’ Villanelle continues.

‘Non, of course not,’ Elodie says. She waggles the mouse and starts to type in some details. ‘I will need a passport, or a drivers license.’

Villanelle bites her lip. ‘I’m worried he’ll find me,’ she says. ‘He’s crazy.’

‘Our systems are secure,’ Elodie says.

‘That’s what the last place said,’ Villanelle says, tears springing to her eyes. Eve tries to rearrange her features into something similarly sad and worried.

Elodie chews on her lip. ‘I will get into trouble,’ she says.

‘Put someone else’s name down. Please. We’ll pay in cash,’ Villanelle says, reaching back and taking Eve’s hand.

Elodie looks between them, her brow furrowed. ‘OK,’ she says finally. ‘I will sort it out.’

Eve passes over the money, pleased to see they have enough for another night if necessary, and helps Villanelle over to the elevator. Villanelle is trying to walk a little faster, or maybe Eve is pulling her faster in her excitement to have a lay down.

They only have to wait a second for the elevator, and step in, Villanelle waving at Elodie as the door slides closed.

‘What a moron,’ Villanelle says, wiping the tears from her face.

‘She’s just a nice person,’ Eve says. ‘We’re lucky she bought that.’

‘Lucky? It was my acting,’ Villanelle says, sniffing.

The door dings back open, and they stagger to the door, Eve sliding the key card in and sighing in relief as the lock goes green. She leaves her bag in the hall in favour of helping Villanelle into the room. The bathroom is to the left, hanging space to the right, the room opening in front of them after the tiny hall.

‘There’s only one bed,’ Eve says, pausing. 

‘Yes, we are a couple, what did you expect?’ Villanelle pushes away from her, planting her palms on the mattress. ‘Oh, yes.’ She eases herself down, laying the right way this time, her head on the pillow

‘Where am I meant to sleep?’

‘On the bed,’ Villanelle says with her eyes shut. ‘I promise not to have sex with you tonight, even if you ask nicely.’

Eve huffs, going back to grab the bag and coming back in. Villanelle appears asleep already, her hands folded across her stomach, mouth slightly open. Eve sighs, her own eyes feeling heavy and sticky. She’d like nothing more than to collapse on the bed next to her, but instead folds the top blanket back in over her like a cocoon. One of Villanelle’s legs is still sticking out, but it’s better than nothing. Eve knows that people are meant to look young and innocent in sleep, but Villanelle really does look like she’s sleeping off a bender. Eve brushes a strand of hair away from Villanelle’s open mouth, less out of a sense of tenderness than out of a desire not to be woken by her hacking up a hairball.

She then crosses to the other side of the bed, crawling in under the cover. She wants to stick as close to the edge as possible, but Villanelle’s body weight is pinning the sheets down so that the only way to be properly covered is to move towards the middle of the bed. She can feel Villanelle’s body heat warming her back, hear her gentle breathing. She falls asleep like she’s falling into a hole, deep and dark and quick.

…

The fucking phone is ringing again. She pulls herself out of sleep with difficulty, raising her head to find it before realising it’s still in her back pocket. She fishes it out with her clumsy hands, and presses the green button.

‘What?’ she says, voice hoarse and grumpy, pressing the phone to her ear over the top of her hair. She turns her head to look at Villanelle, who is awake and smirking at her.

 _Rude,_ Villanelle mouths. Eve rolls her eyes.

‘Hello. Where are you?’ a man Eve guesses is Konstantin says.

‘Uh, hi. We’re in Orleans.’ Eve rubs at her eyes.

There’s a pause. ‘Where’s Villanelle?’

‘Right here.’ Eve makes to pass the phone over and Villanelle shakes her head, pushes it back towards Eve. ‘Um, asleep.’

Konstantin pauses. ‘She’s OK?’

‘I think so? She lost a lot of blood, and he gave her something, but I think that it’s worn off.’ Villanelle gives her a thumbs up before closing her eyes again.

‘Is she violent?’

It’s Eve’s turn to pause. ‘Less than usual, I guess?’

Konstantin laughs, and Eve starts a little at the loud sound. ‘Good, that’s good. Last time they gave her that stuff she killed a lot of people.’

Eve swallows. ‘She didn’t tell me that.’

‘Eh.’ Eve can practically hear the shrug. ‘I wouldn’t worry about it now. She didn’t kill you.’

‘I know that,’ Eve snaps.

Konstantin laughs again. ‘So, Orleans. I thought you were in Paris?’

‘We had – a problem.’

‘What sort of problem?’

‘We lost our car.’ Eve wonders if it’s been reported stolen yet. She doesn’t see how it wouldn’t have been. She wonders if she should let anyone know that it’s there, next to the house with the two dead bodies. She shivers. ‘We had to catch a bus.’

‘A bus?’ He sounds delighted. ‘I didn’t know Villanelle did that kind of thing.’

Eve finds herself warming to the man, wonders if she could grab a drink with him and commiserate over the things Villanelle did and didn’t do. ‘She didn’t like it.’

‘Well, I will see what I can do. Where are you?’

Eve hesitates, glancing at Villanelle who appears to already be asleep, her chest rising and falling slowly.

‘I’m not going to betray you,’ Konstantin says.

Eve swallows. ‘How do I know?’

‘I guess you don’t.’

‘That doesn’t fill me with confidence.’

Konstantin sighs, long and heavy. ‘I promise?’

Eve turns to face the wall, squeezes the bridge of her nose between thumb and forefinger. ‘Fine,’ she says. ‘I’ll send you the address.’

‘Great. Talk later.’

‘Bye,’ she says, faintly.

She rolls onto her side to study Villanelle’s profile, wondering if the person coming is someone Villanelle knows, wonders if it’s someone who will take this mess over and fix it. She texts Konstantin, leaving their room number out of the message, before allowing herself to sleep again.

…

She wakes sometime later to Villanelle knocking around the room.

‘You alright?’ Eve runs her hands through her hair, fingers tangling in the knots.

‘Yes.’ Villanelle’s voice is a croak, and her hands are shaking.

‘What are you doing?’ Eve sits up, rubbing sleep from her eyes.

‘Peeing.’

‘OK,’ Eve says, propping herself up on the wall, watching Villanelle stumble into the bathroom, close the door behind her.

Villanelle emerges some ten minutes later, her jeans still unbuttoned, her top somehow shrunken against her frame. Eve stares at her, at the way she looks so out-of-place in this room, in those clothes. Eve wonders how many people can say they’ve seen her out-of-sorts, if anyone can.

‘What?’ Villanelle says, running her fingers through the tips of her hair and pulling a face at the grease she finds there.

‘Nothing.’

Villanelle shuffles to the bed, rolling herself down into it, hand against her stomach. ‘Stop staring, then. I am not at my best.’ She closes her eyes, her body relaxing against the mattress as she pulls the blanket back over herself. ‘Thanks, for this.’

Eve smiles a little at the acknowledgement. ‘I thought you might get cold.’

‘It’s nice of you,’ Villanelle says, running her hand across the pilling fabric.

Eve turns her face away. ‘Konstantin is sending someone here.’

‘Great.’ Villanelle doesn’t sound interested.

‘Why didn’t you want to talk to him?’

Villanelle fiddles with the blanket, pulls it up to her neck. ‘Sometimes I get sick of the lecturing, Eve.’

Eve chews on her bottom lip. ‘He said that you’ve been drugged like this before.’

‘He would know.’

‘He said it made you violent.’

Villanelle snorts. ‘Compared to what?’

‘I – don’t know.’

‘You don’t have to worry,’ Villanelle says. ‘I’m not going to murder you.’

‘I know. I’m not worried about that,’ Eve says. Villanelle looks surprised, then pleased. ‘I’m just wondering what it is?’

‘I don’t know. It’s meant to make you confused, easy to boss around.’ Villanelle presses her lips together, rubs her forehead. ‘That’s probably why I went on the bus.’

Eve sighs, pressing her head back into the pillow. ‘I wasn’t bossy.’

‘The last time it happened.’ Villanelle pauses. She sounds unsure of herself, and Eve watches her struggle to find the words, as if she doesn’t really want to mention it to Eve. ‘The last time was when I killed those donors.’

Eve frowns. ‘I thought you wanted to leave?’

‘I guess I did. It was very messy. Quite personal.’

‘But.’ Eve shakes her head. ‘You defected.’

‘I think technically it was a mutual breakup,’ Villanelle says, screwing up her face. ‘A bit like being fired and quitting the same day.’

‘I – so none of this was about taking down the Red Room? It was just… a follow-up to a bad trip?’ Eve is still trying to put the puzzle pieces together, she realises, still trying to fit Villanelle onto her theory wall.  

‘I couldn’t think of anything else to do. I didn’t know what I _wanted_ to do. Revenge filled the days quite nicely.’ She smiles at Eve in a knowing way. ‘I got a bit obsessed, I’ll admit. But what’s life without hobbies.’

Eve sits on the new knowledge, turning it over in her head. She thinks of the way she’s spent years of her life chasing down someone, clocking in overtime and weekends, to avoid her own inability to think of anything else to do, her own inability to admit what she wanted.

She can’t think of that now, can’t bear to examine that aching space inside of her that was only ever filled when the Widow left a note. ‘Why did they use the drugs on you, then? If you weren’t going to leave?’

Villanelle’s smile holds a chill, now. ‘They actually tried it because they said I had too many feelings. The things you could tell them, huh, Eve? We wouldn’t be here right now if they just knew what you know about me.’

Eve feels guilt coiling in her stomach. ‘I was angry.’

‘You meant it, though.’ Villanelle’s voice is light.

Eve sighs, scrubs a hand over her face. She wants to lie, can’t. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Well. Friends forgive each other for saying mean things,’ Villanelle says. ‘And you’ve been quite stressed.’

Eve breathes out a laugh. ‘Yeah.’

‘And we’re friends.’ Villanelle raises an eyebrow at Eve, and Eve thinks about all the things that have happened, all the things Villanelle has seen Eve do. The way Villanelle’s experiences suddenly don’t seem so hard to understand.

‘Yes,’ Eve says.

Villanelle struggles with the blanket, extricating her hand and putting it next to Eve’s. Eve looks at it for a long moment before taking it, threading their fingers together.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eve doesn't understand how to have a moment.

When Eve wakes next the room is lit only by the light from the bedside alarm clock, a thin green that reminds Eve of the microwave in the safe house, of Bill’s body lying on a floor. She shivers, goes to tug the covers more tightly around herself before realising that she’s still holding Villanelle’s hand, their fingers tangled together. She tugs herself free, and Villanelle’s hand curls in on itself as she stirs.  

‘What?’ Villanelle groans.

‘Nothing,’ Eve says. She can feel the tension leaving her at the realisation that Villanelle is awake, that she has someone to confront the night with.

‘What’s the time?’ Villanelle sounds husky, her voice coloured with sleep.

‘Uh.’ Eve twists to look at the alarm clock. ‘Three.’

‘In the morning?’ Villanelle presses a hand to her forehead. ‘Konstantin is taking his time sending someone.’

‘We’re not where we’re meant to be,’ Eve says. The colour of the light doesn’t seem so similar now, the hue of Villanelle’s skin less sickly than it had been in the other room.

‘Where are we?’ Villanelle has slipped her hand back into her hair, her face screwed up in a grimace.

‘Orleans,’ Eve says. ‘I told you that.’

‘I’ve had a lot going on,’ Villanelle says, pulling her hand from her hair and wiping it on the blanket. ‘I am greasier than fish and chips.’

‘Is that a saying?’

‘Touch me,’ Villanelle says, and Eve raises her eyebrows.

‘As enticing as that sounds…’

‘My hair, you pervert.’ Villanelle shifts her head closer, and Eve shuffles away, feeling lucky that Villanelle can’t slop the strands in her face.

‘God, you’re obsessed.’

‘No more than you are with me.’ Villanelle smiles, all teeth, and the green tint to her skin and the dark shadows on her face make her look like a witch in a movie. Eve finds it somehow endearing.

‘I’m not obsessed with you,’ Eve says.

‘I don’t believe you.’ Villanelle sighs. ‘I feel like I’ve been coated in olive oil. I’m going to shower.’

Eve tucks the covers tighter under her chin. ‘Can you stand up?’

‘For this, I must,’ Villanelle says, her voice grim.

Eve bites her lip to keep from smiling at her seriousness. ‘I don’t think you should get the stitches wet.’

‘I thought you weren’t a doctor.’

‘I’m just trying to help.’

‘It’ll be fine,’ Villanelle says. ‘You worry too much.’ She starts to sit up, groaning. Eve gets out of bed, shivering in the cool air, and walks over to grab her arms and help her up.

Villanelle sways a little as she gets her feet under her. Eve doesn’t want to ask, knows that the answer will be yes, but can’t help herself.

‘Do you, um…’ Eve leaves the sentence hanging in the air, and Villanelle nods, reaching out for Eve’s shoulder.

Eve helps her to the bathroom and deposits her on the toilet, turning the light on. They hiss in unison, squinting against the bright light.

Eve turns the water on, glances at Villanelle to see her struggling to remove her top. Eve leaves the water running and goes to help, grabbing the hem and pulling it up and off. Villanelle is silent as Eve moves to grab the ankles of the jeans, pulling them down too. Eve doesn’t linger, tries to look impassive like a nurse helping an ugly, old patient, but she can feel the heat rising in her cheeks at Villanelle’s mostly naked body before her. It feels different to the first time, the relative calm of this moment a far cry from the screaming in her head before.

Villanelle’s thumbs hook in the waistband of her underwear. ‘Can I get rid of these, now?’ She arches an eyebrow and Eve nods, looking away. Villanelle taps her shoulder and she looks back to see they’re part way down. Villanelle smiles a little at her, and Eve slips them the rest of the way down and off. It feels like it takes forever, like time has slowed to a crawl, her fingers tingling as they brush against Villanelle’s skin. She tries not to look, not to glance, but her eyes slip over Villanelle’s body, and something twists in the pit of her stomach. She looks back up at Villanelle’s face, waiting for a comment, something to break the tension. Villanelle just presses her palms into her knees, and Eve can see the definition in her thighs as she eases herself up.

Eve lets her put a hand on her shoulder, helping her under the spray, getting her sleeve damp in the process. The water hits Villanelle’s back and she moans, a long, low sound that makes Eve blush. She tries to move back but Villanelle’s fingers tighten on her shoulder, body bending towards Eve as if she’d fall without someone there. Her eyes are closed, and the water is running off her forehead and chin. Without the bruises she could be a model in a commercial, an actress.

She can’t help looking down, at the way Villanelle’s stomach muscles slide under her skin, adjusting to try and find the least painful position. She has stubble growing in above a line of pubic hair, and Eve wonders how prickly it is, what it would feel like against her palm. It’s humanising, somehow, to see the marks of failed maintenance against Villanelle’s perfect body. When she looks back up, Villanelle’s eyes are wide and bright for the first time since she was shot, watching Eve with an unreadable expression. Eve swallows, wants to take it back, wants to take her own clothes off so Villanelle can look and then they’ll be even, then they can forget Eve ever saw. She can hear her heartbeat thudding up her throat.

‘Do you – do you want soap? Shampoo?’ Eve bends over to grab at the toiletries, and Villanelle throws out a hand to lean against the wall instead. The tiny shampoo bottle slips between Eve’s fingers, clattering across the floor and giving her a moment to regroup.

Eve tells herself she’s just comparing, the way women do, comparing the ways that Villanelle’s skin shines with scars where she is smooth, the way Villanelle is smooth where she is beginning to wrinkle. It doesn’t mean anything. She’s just jealous, she just wants to be Villanelle, wants to carry herself like a predator and have a purpose that’s not sitting in an office until it’s time to go home. She wants to be beautiful and young and fashionable. She wants to fuck or murder or use whoever she wants whenever she wants without consequences.

It doesn’t mean anything, to look.

Villanelle’s fingers brush against Eve’s wrist as she takes the shampoo, and Eve jerks her hand back, the touch pulling her out of her justifications back into the moment. Villanelle watches Eve as she works it into her hair, head tilted slightly back so that she’s looking down her nose. Judging. Eve holds her gaze, aching to say something, for Villanelle to goad her, for them to fall back into bickering rather than this charged silence. But Villanelle is quiet, almost contemplative, and Eve isn’t getting anything she wants from her, doesn’t understand what any of it means.

Villanelle finally closes her eyes to rinse the suds from her hair and Eve takes the opportunity to look away, staring at the wall. Eve wonders if it’s just the next stage in the game. Pretend to be flirting with someone before shutting down when they look. Not that Eve was even looking, not like that. She was just… observing.

She’s annoyed by the time the shower turns off.

‘Towel?’

Eve almost jumps when Villanelle speaks, her voice soft and tired. She grabs the towel, holding it out behind her for Villanelle. She glances back, watches Villanelle patting the towel over her stomach, drying the stitches. She looks away again, pressing her lips together.

‘You’re angry,’ Villanelle says. ‘Why?’

‘I’m not angry,’ Eve says. She’s ready for Villanelle to snark at her, ready to be asked if she enjoyed the view, if she wanted to hop in with her next time, something so she knows what page she’s on.

‘What, then?’ Villanelle still sounds gentle.

‘Nothing. Tired.’ Eve clenches her jaw so hard she can hear her teeth grind.

Villanelle makes a noise in her throat, like a scoff. ‘Go back to bed, then,’ she says, an edge to her tone.

‘Fine,’ Eve says, patting her hands on the spare towel and moving back towards the bed. She cracks her shin against the edge of the bed, her night vision shot by the bathroom lights, and swears as she crawls into bed, her annoyance cranked up by the pain.

She stares at the ceiling, unable to get Villanelle’s body, her face, out of her head, the silence between them rattling her. She wants to ask what it’s about, doesn’t know how to say it so it’s not taken as some kind of admission. It would be just like Villanelle, to twist everything.

The light in the bathroom flicks off and Villanelle makes her way much less clumsily across the room, making for the bed.

‘Don’t get in bed with wet hair,’ Eve says.

‘I’m going to.’ Villanelle either hasn’t understood the tone or is pretending. Pretending, Eve thinks, always pretending.

‘Don’t.’ Eve feels the bed dip, sighs.

Villanelle groans, long and deep, and Eve opens her eyes to look at her. She can see the uninterrupted expanse of skin across Villanelle’s throat and arms, disappearing under the blanket.

‘Are you naked?’ Eve shuffles back a little. She can hear the bite in her own voice, wills Villanelle to hear it and respond in kind.

‘I’m not putting those jeans back on.’ She has her eyes closed, turns her face away from Eve.

‘What are you going to wear to leave the hotel?’

Villanelle shrugs. ‘The towel, I suppose.’

‘You’re impossible.’

‘No. Just difficult.’

Eve sighs, and Villanelle doesn’t respond, so she does it again, more loudly, but Villanelle stays silent until her breathing evens out.

Eve feels wide awake, her insides crawling with something uncomfortable and immediate. She thinks about waking Villanelle up, wringing a confession or a fight from her. Something. She needs something.

She sits up, grabbing the phone from the side table and flicking open the web browser for something to do, half thinking of reading the news, the weather. Instead, Eve ends up flicking through Villanelle’s browser history. She feels a little bad to realise she actually doesn’t feel bad about the invasion of privacy before reminding herself Villanelle had hacked her phone.

There’s nothing in the history to suggest the owner of the phone is a serial killer, the searches mainly for clothes, restaurants, art. She clicks on one of the clothes sites, and lands on a designer website, looking at the most baffling dresses she’s ever seen. Her eyes bulge as she sees a Dracula print dress with pointed shoulders for three thousand dollars, and she wonders what Villanelle would make of it – if she would like it. If she would stare at the stupid dress the way she’d stared at Eve, making Eve _guess._

She huffs, putting the phone down and trying to get back to sleep.

…

As soon as the clock hits six Eve gets up and steps in the shower. Villanelle has used most of the shampoo, and so Eve utilises the shower cap, letting the water run over her shoulders and back for longer than she should. She thinks of Niko again, how he would tease her about water conservation. God, she should really fucking call him. She sticks her head under the shower and lets the sound of the water on the plastic cap drown her thoughts.

The small bathroom has fogged to the point it could double as a sauna by the time she gets out, and she struggles to get her jeans up in the humidity.

When she opens the door back into the bedroom, she can see Villanelle’s eyes are open a slit.

‘Did you smoke in there?’ Villanelle says, watching the steam billow out of the room. Her hair is messy and tangled around her face, the product of going to bed with wet hair. Eve feels a certain vindication, in that.

‘What size are you?’ Eve says.

‘What?’

‘I’m going to get you some clothes.’ Eve crosses to the suitcase, snatching up the money.

Villanelle smiles. ‘I don’t shop according to size, Eve. It’s limiting.’ She breathes out in a warm, sleepy way.

‘A ballpark figure? Eight? Ten?’

‘You’re really going to buy me clothes?’

‘Yeah.’ Eve feels the skin across her knuckles go taught as she squeezes her fingers together. She’s itchy with the need to be alone, to be out of this room, away from Villanelle. ‘Underwear. A bra, maybe. Jeans, since you hate mine so much.’

Villanelle stretches under the sheets, screwing up her face as something twinges. ‘Are you sure it’s safe?’

‘No. But. I just – I’d like to do something normal. And you can’t be naked.’

Villanelle’s face shifts, and Eve thinks she can glimpse genuine understanding before it’s shoved under a mocking smile. And that, Eve understands. ‘I think I’m a size eight at Target.’

Eve rolls her eyes, feeling some of the anxiety in her chest loosen. ‘OK. I’ll get you something to match your face. A nice purple.’

Villanelle looks amused. ‘Arsehole.’

‘Dick.’

…

Eve ends up in the _Monoprix_ , walking up and down the aisles, unable to choose. It’s really dumb to be here, she thinks, the same sense of unreality that she felt entering the _Total Gas_ however long ago that was now settling on her shoulders. But the people around her are talking about nothing, and nobody is attempting to kill her, so she just keeps walking up and down the grid-like aisles, brushing her hands across the clothes and the metal railings, trying to ground herself. She wonders if perhaps she isn’t just waiting for something to happen, something shocking, so she can be on to the next thing instead of stuck on whatever personality switch Villanelle had decided to have last night.

Still, she finds she wants to be back in the room with Villanelle, and doesn’t that just add an extra layer of bullshit to the whole thing?

A woman is browsing the racks up from her, picking up clothes, sighing. A man comes up to her, and they have a short conversation in French, tense and annoyed, before the man leaves again. Eve can guess the conversation, has had it with Niko many times – aren’t you done looking, we have things to do at home, we’ve been here hours. Admittedly, she and Niko tended to have the argument in the opposite direction when Niko dragged her to the gardening centre, but still. Eve wonders what they’ll do when they get home. Probably sit on opposite sides of the room watching telly, read books, have nice but expected sex, go to sleep, and have the same conversation next week. The woman looks over and Eve grins at her. The woman smiles uncertainly back before scurrying off after her husband. Eve doesn’t care.

The unreality fades to leave happiness in its wake, bursting bright and hot through her chest, down into her stomach. Eve’s normal is now picking out clothes for an assassin. Eve’s normal is catching a bus away from the scene of a murder. She doesn’t have to have that conversation ever again, not if she doesn’t want to.

She’s found a new normal.

She quickly picks out a cheap packet of underwear, one of those sports bras that did nothing when running but held your breasts tight enough to do yoga, a pair of jeans and a zip-up hoody, big and thick and warm and purple. She imagines Villanelle’s face when she sees it, the disdain that will wrinkle up her nose, the way she’ll lament the fabric and her body having to touch it, and almost laughs watching the cashier bag it.

The walk back to the hotel is pleasant, where the walk from the hotel had been nerve-wracking, expecting at any moment to be stopped by someone who knew what she’d done. But nobody knew. Nobody but her and Villanelle. She turns her face up to the sun and smiles as it warms her face. A part of her wonders if she’s going crazy, if this sense of euphoria is the last kick of a dying mind, and she decides she doesn’t care about that either. She feels like singing, like laughing, like dancing.

She’s alive, she’s so alive.

The good cheer carries her through the door into the lobby of the hotel, where she stops at the sight of a woman sitting in the plush waiting chairs to the left of the door by the very obviously fake plant. It’s like someone physically pushes the air from her lungs, like it’s sucked out of the room, and Eve’s head spins at the whiplash.

‘Carolyn?’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late update, real life and creative anxiety are apparently things at the moment! 
> 
> If you imagine Eve in that last scene walking down the street doing finger-guns like Peter Parker in Spider-man 3 your enjoyment will increase 100%.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eve and Villanelle attempt to be on the same page.

Villanelle flicks through the channels on the TV to give her hands something to do, waiting for Eve to return. She has it muted, sick of the prattling of the morning show hosts, but she mimics their facial expressions as she scrolls through to stave off the boredom.

_Happy._

_Disgusted._

_Amused._

One of the hosts is bored, she can tell, underneath his mask of amazement at some home appliance. It’s the eyes. Her eyes never betray her like that.

She remembers watching faces as a child, being taught how to do them, someone else’s fingers poking her face into shape. They’d looked so unnatural, so foreign, compared to the blank looks of the people around her, more exaggerated even than the cartoons. She hadn’t really believed real people looked like that, just running around changing their faces like a mask, feeling things and wearing them on their body. It made a bit of sense though, she thought, for people to understand how they felt when they were in tune with their face. So, she let them move her and waited for clarity. It hadn’t quite come, but she was creeping up on it every day. She barely had to think about what happy looked like anymore, and so what if other people were better than her at themselves? If she were as simple as other people, she’d understand herself too.

She doesn’t quite understand Eve, though. Eve had been mad at her last night, she knows that much for sure. It’s harder to parse the why. She’d never had anyone get mad at her for being naked, and she knows Eve had liked that part, so it’s probably not that.

Probably her husband.

Villanelle curls her lip, by herself, not mimicking anymore, letting the ugly expression crawl across her face. It feels right, to sneer at the idea of the husband, Eve’s husband, whom she loves so much she won’t call, who she doesn’t want to sleep with anymore, so what’s the point of him?

What’s the point of him, with his moustache and his card games and his teaching? His internet presence was as underwhelming as hers was non-existent, as pointless as his existence, and she’s amused, angry, frustrated, smug, just thinking about it.

She groans, looking at the ceiling now. What’s the point in thinking about it anymore? Eve will give in sooner or later, Villanelle will get what she wants, and everything will be fine. Villanelle isn’t some tragic, dragging around a suitcase full of feelings for someone who doesn’t want her. She packs light, she gets new things, new things that are better and she doesn’t take them to the next city or even up the road, so taking whatever this is all the way across France is dumb. And OK, she might have lost the metaphor somewhere along the way but the fact remains that Eve being mad is not upsetting and Villanelle is fine.

So there.

Her stomach growls, and she groans, raising her head a little to see if the small kettle set up next to the TV has any biscuits. She should have told Eve to get food, but she’d been so busy pretending not to care about any of it that she’d forgotten.

The realisation makes her pause. She’s never forgotten food before.

…

‘Carolyn?’ Eve says again.

The woman looks up from the waiting chair, her eyes made twice as large by her reading glasses. ‘Mm?’

‘It’s me,’ Eve says. ‘Eve Polastri.’ She grimaces as she says it, feeling stupid.

Carolyn gives a ghost of a smile. ‘Yes, Eve. I know who you are.’ She looks amused, folding the paper in half and placing it on the table in front of her. ‘I’ve been waiting for you.’

Eve has half a second before she realises what Carolyn means, half a second of thinking maybe she can get Carolyn to help them, and then it hits her like a brick wall to the face. ‘You’re – Konstantin sent _you_?’ She takes a step back, eyes darting around the room, not finding anyone lurking in the corners. ‘Wait – what? How do you know him?’ Her mouth can’t keep up with her brain, which feels like it’s shuffling frantically through all of her memories from the last few days, pulling out scraps of Villanelle’s words, Carolyn’s words, trying to make a connection. ‘Oh my God, you’re the mole?’

‘Not quite,’ Carolyn says. ‘Perhaps I could explain upstairs?’ She stands and Eve clutches the bag of clothes to her chest, as if she can stop an attack with fabric and paper. ‘Don’t make a scene, Eve.’

‘A scene?’ Eve hisses. ‘I think this warrants an entire fucking play!’

Carolyn frowns, a slight dip between her brows. ‘That’s a very clever pun.’

‘I – thanks?’ Eve closes her eyes briefly. Everything is wrong, wrong, wrong and what was she doing, exactly, what was she even saying right now? ‘No, no, not thank you, you’re a – a double-agent!’

‘No.’

Eve pauses. ‘Then, Konstantin is a double-agent?’ She feels like she’s playing twenty questions somehow.

‘I’m not sure,’ Carolyn says, shrugging one-shoulder in a tired kind of way. ‘I think he’s possibly more of a triple-agent.’

Eve tries to slot that into her existing network of information. ‘So, he’s working against Villanelle?’

‘He called me to help her,’ Carolyn says. ‘So I don’t think so.’

‘Then you’re working with him?’

‘Not exactly.’ Carolyn smiles again, and Eve wants to scream.

‘Then…’ Eve puts a hand to her forehead, frowning. ‘You stopped us from getting to her. Is – is she some kind of sleeper agent?’

‘I’ll explain upstairs,’ Carolyn says again.

‘No, that’s not right…’ Eve rubs at her temple. ‘The only thing I know for sure is you lied to me, and I can’t trust you.’

‘I’m on your side, Eve.’

‘Then explain!’ Eve snaps. ‘Tell me what the hell is going on!’

Carolyn looks at her for a long moment, her gaze flat and unimpressed. Eve feels embarrassed, in spite of the righteous anger filling her.

‘I’ll explain upstairs.’ Carolyn’s tone is clipped, serious.  

‘No. Not until I know you’re not here to kill her,’ Eve says.

‘I’m not going to kill anyone,’ Carolyn says.

Eve nods, a jerky, tense movement that makes her neck crack. ‘OK, but your friends are? Where are they? You didn’t come alone, surely.’

‘None of them are going to kill anyone, either. Unless they have to.’

‘Great,’ Eve says. ‘Fantastic.’

‘I know this is difficult – ’ Carolyn sounds almost warm, and Eve shakes her head.

‘Don’t. You’re not – don’t be kind about this. It doesn’t suit you.’

Carolyn’s expression is as enigmatic as ever. She could be amused or condescending or taken aback, and Eve has no idea what she even wants her to be. ‘I’ve always been kind to you, Eve.’

‘Except for lying to me for seven years,’ Eve snaps.

Carolyn shrugs. ‘Take it how you like.’ She starts to walk to the elevator, her low heels clicking against the floor in a brisk, business-like manner.

Eve contemplates not following, just turning around and stepping onto the street and letting a bullet or a bus take her far, far away. It would be easy, she thinks, to just not follow. If Carolyn really wanted her dead, she’d be dead. She figures that gives her at least a fifty percent chance of surviving if she leaves.

Her fingers tighten around the bag, the slight crumple of the paper bringing her back into the present.

She can’t leave Villanelle. Not like this.

The doors to the elevator pings open, and they step inside. Carolyn presses the floor number without waiting for Eve to give her the room number, and the thought that Carolyn knows the room number makes Eve pause, trying to remember if she’d given it to Konstantin.

‘I said I was Villanelle’s mother,’ Carolyn says. 

‘What?’ Eve frowns.

‘To get your room number. I could see you wondering.’

‘Oh.’ Eve blinks. ‘So much for privacy.’

‘Nobody can hide anything from their mothers,’ Carolyn says.

‘I seem to hide a lot from mine,’ Eve says.

Carolyn smiles. ‘Perhaps it was just my mother.’ Eve tries to picture Carolyn’s mother, can only conjure up an image of Maggie Smith. ‘Lucky she wasn’t alive when I joined SHIELD, she’d be telling all her friends state secrets.’

Eve bites her lip, wondering what the appropriate etiquette is for hearing that your boss-turned-mole-or-sabouteur-or-something-equally-likely-to-get-you-killed’s mother is dead. ‘Sorry,’ she hazards.

‘What for?’

‘Um, hearing that?’ Eve winces. ‘I mean – you know what I mean.’ She hadn’t noticed the first few times how slow this elevator is, wonders if perhaps Carolyn has had it slowed down in some weird display of power.

Carolyn looks at her. ‘Well, I said it.’

‘It’s a – just something people say,’ Eve says, making a show of getting her room card out of her wallet so that she doesn’t have to make eye contact.

‘Right.’

The door opens and they step out into the hallway, Carolyn making a beeline for their door, standing aside to allow Eve to open it. Eve tightens her fingers around the card, her heart pounding away in her ears.

‘You’re bleeding.’ Carolyn nods at her hand, and Eve uncurls her fingers. The edges of the card have reopened a glass wound on her palm, and the blood pushes out in a sluggish pearl.

‘It’s nothing,’ Eve says, tucking the hand into her pocket, hiding it. She feels sick, in a weird kind of way, like she’d be floating through the air if it weren’t for the nausea clawing her back to the ground.

‘Are we going in?’

Eve pauses, studying the lines of Carolyn’s face. She’d always found the serious lines of Carolyn’s face comforting, the air of confidence she exuded reassuring. Now, it makes her feel out of her depth, like she’s about three seconds from seeing that the game they were playing wasn’t chess, it was Russian Roulette. ‘You’re not going to hurt her?’

Carolyn sighs and looks at the ceiling. ‘No.’

‘Forgive me if I don’t believe you,’ Eve says, cold.

‘You’re being very difficult.’

‘Oh, I’m so sorry. It’s just been a hard few days,’ Eve says, laying the sarcasm on thick.

‘I’m more than happy to listen.’ Carolyn gestures at the door.

‘Right.’ Eve hesitates, trying to plan the next few minutes in her head. They can’t shoot Carolyn and survive, most likely. Carolyn wouldn’t be here if they could shoot her and survive. They can’t leave quickly with Villanelle incapacitated. So, the best option is to explain the situation to Villanelle so she doesn’t do anything too stupid, and then… hopefully not die, or disappear, or any number of the things she knows SHIELD could do to them for stumbling across this particular secret.

Oh, and committing all the murder. They might get in trouble for that.

‘She’s, um, naked.’ Eve tries her best to look embarrassed. ‘Perhaps it would be best if I…?’

Eve can’t see how they both don’t die, despite Carolyn’s words. Carolyn could have a gun anywhere, tucked under her long tan coat, and Eve wouldn’t know.

Carolyn nods. ‘You’ve got five minutes.’

‘Ten,’ Eve says.

Carolyn raises an eyebrow.

‘She’s slow. She’s been shot.’

Carolyn nods. ‘Alright. Ten.’

Eve opens the door and steps inside, shutting it in Carolyn’s face, taking a moment to breathe, her hand pressed against the wood.

‘Finally,’ Villanelle says. Eve turns to see her pushing herself up on the pillows, her attention on brushing crumbs from her chest. ‘Did you bring food?’

Eve takes a step in the room, trying to project a calm authority. ‘Villanelle, I – ‘

Villanelle looks up at her and her demeanour changes, the relaxed slant of her body vanishing in readiness. She swings her legs out of bed in a single movement, one arm wrapped around her stomach. ‘What is it?’ She looks alarmed, and Eve holds up her hands.

‘Woah, wait, don’t hurt yourself.’

‘Are you alright? Were we followed? I knew a bus was stupid!’  

Eve frowns at the dig, tossing the bag of clothes on the bed. ‘Get dressed and I’ll explain.’ She crosses to the other side of the room, kneeling to get into her suitcase.

Villanelle frowns right back, glancing at the bag. ‘Explain now. You haven’t had any complaints so far.’

‘I’ve complained a lot, you just haven’t listened.’ Eve digs through her clothes, grabbing the gun from the bottom of the bag, and pulling it out, checking the clip.

‘Eve, tell me what’s going on,’ Villanelle says. She’s very still, looking at the gun.

‘Konstantin’s contact is Carolyn Martens,’ Eve says. ‘My boss, and deputy director of SHIELD.’

Villanelle’s face goes through a series of movements, as though Villanelle can’t work out how to react. ‘The rat.’

Eve shakes her head. ‘She says she’s not.’

‘That’s what rats say.’ Villanelle’s eyes are bright. ‘Are you going to give me the gun?’

‘No.’ Eve swallows. ‘Get dressed.’

Villanelle starts to comply, watching Eve out the corner of her eye. Eve checks the safety before tucking the gun into the waistband of her jeans, tugging at her top to make sure it’s baggy enough to hide the bulge. She briefly wonders how good a shot Carolyn is.

‘What are you going to do with that?’ Villanelle says, her voice sharp.

‘Nothing,’ Eve says. ‘Probably.’

Villanelle makes a noise as she zips up the hoody. ‘I can use it better than you.’

‘Nobody’s using it,’ Eve says. ‘Unless – it’s just backup.’ It’s not a lie as such, more a half-truth. Eve can think of several scenarios in which a gun might be the first solution, but it’s going to depend on Carolyn, not Villanelle’s whims.

Villanelle takes a deep breath. ‘Eve.’

‘Villanelle, no.’

‘You think Konstantin brought her here for me not to kill her?’ She waves a hand as she pulls up the jeans. ‘She’s a gift.’

‘What for?’ Eve says. ‘How do you even know him?’

‘I told you, he’s a friend.’ Villanelle smiles. ‘My very best friend, now.’

Eve shakes her head. ‘I think he’s Carolyn’s very best friend, actually. What was he, ex-Red Room? That’s why he’s helping you?’

Villanelle’s smile disappears under a mutinous expression. ‘Perhaps.’

Eve scoffs. ‘And you trusted him.’

Villanelle makes a show of being offended, eyebrows raised. ‘Oh, and you’re so smart, leading her right to our hideout?’

‘I didn’t have much of a choice.’ Eve watches Villanelle roll her eyes. ‘Konstantin gave the location, that’s not my fault.’

‘You gave him the address.’

‘You told me to!’ Eve throws her hands up.

‘And when have you ever listened to me?’ Villanelle says. ‘You’re very selective with that. How am I meant to know what will be done and what won’t?’

‘Look, we can’t afford to be arguing right now,’ Eve says. ‘We have to work together.’

Villanelle looks at her for a long moment. ‘Alright. Then we should play to our strengths. I’m the better shot.’

‘No,’ Eve says. ‘We can’t kill Carolyn.’

‘Not right now?’ Villanelle says.

‘Not ever,’ Eve says, hard.

Villanelle’s face twists in rage, and Eve takes a step back, her hand rising to the gun. She’s reminded of the moment before Villanelle attacked Bill, that she thought she could control her then too, thought she could stop her doing what she wanted. But Eve has the gun now, Eve isn’t injured, Eve has a level of power she didn’t have before. The thought makes her calmer.

Villanelle presses her lips together as she watches Eve move, smoothing her expression into something resembling calm. ‘Why not, though? It would solve at least one problem right now.’

Eve tries to match Villanelle’s expression, as though they’re having a conversation about the weather rather than an international conspiracy. ‘We’ll definitely die if we kill her right now. You think she came alone? Of course not. She’s smart, and she thinks five steps ahead of us.’

‘Ahead of you, maybe,’ Villanelle mutters. She sits on the bed again, twisting a little so she can still see Eve.

‘Don’t be a dick,’ Eve says, cut.

Villanelle arches an eyebrow. ‘What am I allowed to do, then?’

‘I don’t know,’ Eve says. ‘Just – we just need to work out what she wants. She must want something, or we’d both already be dead.’

‘You’ll be fine,’ Villanelle says, waving a dismissive hand.

‘No,’ Eve says. ‘I’m as likely to be killed as you right now, just for knowing about Carolyn. We’re on the same team.’

‘Eve. I won’t let anything happen to you.’ Villanelle has the same expression she had last night, and Eve feels like her stomach has dropped. ‘I mean, I’m annoyed at you right now, and protecting you would be easier with the gun, but.’

Eve tries not to feel as touched as she does, tries to remember that Villanelle is just playing her. It’s difficult, with eyes as wide as that. ‘Just trust me,’ Eve says. ‘Please. This is the right way.’  

Villanelle sighs, nods. She turns her attention to herself, smoothing down the front of her jeans. Eve had deliberately bought a size larger than she thought Villanelle needed, in order to avoid aggravating her stitches, and she’d expected some comment about that. Instead, Villanelle just keeps running her palms over the fabric. Eve wonders what’s she’s feeling for.

‘Well, we should do this, no?’ Villanelle says finally, nodding at the door. Eve estimates they could still take another few minutes, but can’t think of what that would buy them, so she crosses the room and opens the door, stepping back to allow Carolyn into the room.

‘All caught up, then?’ Carolyn enters the room briskly, her hands clasped behind her back. Anyone else would look nervous in this situation, summoned into a strange hotel room with an assassin, but Carolyn looks in control, as much as anyone can in the same room as Villanelle.

‘Not really,’ Villanelle says. ‘Catherine, is it?’

Eve slices her hand across her throat behind Carolyn, and Villanelle just smiles.

‘Carolyn Martens,’ Carolyn says, with a quirk of her lips. ‘As I’m sure you’re aware.’

Villanelle shrugs. ‘Pity. Catherine Wheel would have been a fun kill.’

‘Villanelle,’ Eve says, gritting her teeth.

‘Eve,’ Villanelle says, baring hers.

Carolyn looks between them. ‘Cup of tea, anyone?’

‘Uh.’ Eve blinks. ‘No.’

‘Villanelle?’ Carolyn makes her way to the kettle, and Villanelle smiles back, scrunching up her face tight.

‘No, thank you ever so much.’

‘Alright.’ Carolyn flicks on the kettle, making a show of putting a tea bag in a cup, before leaning against the table. Eve notices that the TV is on, muted, a woman behind Carolyn reading out the news.

‘So, questions?’ Carolyn folds her arms, voice raised over the sound of boiling water.

‘Yeah,’ Villanelle says. ‘Did you bring any food?’

Eve clenches her jaw at Villanelle’s casual tone, almost mocking.

‘No.’

Villanelle hums. ‘Pity.’

‘You’re part of the Red Room?’ Eve cuts in.

‘Oh, no,’ Carolyn says.

‘Then what – ’ Eve pauses, and Carolyn waits, as if confident Eve can solve the puzzle herself. ‘OK, so you were using Villanelle.’

‘Yes. The Widow was useful.’ Carolyn shrugs. ‘We knew of her existence, we knew who she was killing, and we were working backwards.’ She looks at Villanelle, now. ‘But I was never involved. I was just an outside observer.’

Villanelle raises her eyebrows. ‘How noble.’

‘Then – I was just for, what, deniability?’ Eve says.

Carolyn smiles. ‘Yes. It looked like we were trying to catch her, nobody could say we weren’t, and meanwhile the KGB kept overplaying their hand. And, well, the defection just meant that we didn’t have to worry about cleaning up, anymore.’ Carolyn nods at Villanelle. ‘My job is a lot easier now, thanks to you.’

Villanelle smiles, a dangerous edge to it. ‘You’re welcome.’

‘So, you just let people be murdered?’ Eve says.

‘No, Eve, I didn’t let them.’ Carolyn waves a hand, and she doesn’t sound the least apologetic. ‘I just, didn’t try as hard as I possibly could to stop them.’

Eve turns it over in her head. ‘You just kept tabs on her. Because it let you know what someone else was worried about, what they wanted. Because she had such an obvious MO.’

‘I prefer to think of it as style,’ Villanelle says.

‘Yes,’ Carolyn says. ‘Style.’

Eve shakes her head, the pieces falling into place. ‘But you knew what the Red Room was doing?’

Carolyn takes a long time to answer. ‘Yes.’

‘And that was fine with you?’

There’s another pause. ‘No. But as you know, we no longer have to worry about it.’

‘What, thanks to Villanelle?’ Eve turns back to face Carolyn. ‘Because she was turned into _this_? You think that’s OK?’

‘This?’ Villanelle says. ‘Really?’

‘Eve – ’ Carolyn sounds weary.

‘You think kidnapping and torture and God knows what else is OK?’

Carolyn shakes her head. ‘You’re not looking at the big picture. You think we should have shut down something we knew about so they could rebuild in secret? Who would that benefit?’

‘But, why keep it so secret, why – ‘

Carolyn presses her lips together. ‘We wouldn’t want the KGB to know that we knew, would we?’

Eve feels like her brain is melting. ‘So, that’s it? That’s the whole – you allow the mob to kidnap children and turn them into assassins and then you _let_ the assassins kill people so you have a slightly better idea of their plans? The ends justify the means?’

‘Usually.’ Carolyn raises an eyebrow. ‘Wouldn’t you agree?’

‘We’re meant to be better than them.’

‘I haven’t kidnapped children, Eve. I think that does make me better.’

‘See, Eve?’ Villanelle says. ‘I told you I wasn’t the bad guy.’

Eve takes a deep breath, looking at Villanelle. She’s grinning, as if she finds this all genuinely funny, as if Eve’s sense of the world being knocked off-balance is a joke. Eve stares at her, wondering if she could find any empathy there if Carolyn left, if she didn’t have an image to maintain.

The kettle clicks off, loud in the quiet of the room. Carolyn turns, taking her time making the cup of tea. ‘I’m here to hire you,’ Carolyn says. She nods in Villanelle’s direction. ‘One job. After that, I don’t care where you go, or what you do, so long as it’s not murdering anyone at SHIELD.’

‘What happens if I don’t do it?’ Villanelle says, glancing at Carolyn.

‘I don’t know,’ Carolyn says, pursing her lips. ‘I haven’t really thought about it, but I don’t think it would be good.’

Eve moves her hand to brush along the gun, lets her hand fall. ‘And what about me? Are you going to threaten me?’

‘We’ve already assigned the rest of your team to another case,’ Carolyn says. ‘You can join them, if you wish.’

‘I don’t want to work for you,’ Eve says. ‘I’ve already wasted years doing that.’

Carolyn shrugs. ‘That’s fine. I’ll draw up the paperwork when we get back.’ She looks at Villanelle. ‘Well?’

Villanelle is still looking at Eve, but her gaze in on Eve’s hip. Eve turns it away, trying to make it clear she knows what Villanelle is thinking, and Villanelle’s eyes move to her face.

‘You said we were in this together,’ Villanelle says.

Eve bites her lip, trying to show her confusion. ‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Help me,’ Villanelle says.

Eve knows what Villanelle means; shoot Carolyn. There’s a part of her that wants to do it, wants to just put an end to the justifications and the scheming and free them both. If she wasn’t sure that they’d die for it, perhaps she would.

‘Fine,’ Eve says. ‘One job, and then we’re both out.’

Villanelle’s face moves through surprise, annoyance and resignation in quick succession, and she stares at Eve flatly, eyes moving down deliberately to Eve’s hip again, her head angling towards Carolyn.

Carolyn pretends not to see, draining her cup of tea and smacking her lips. ‘Very well,’ she says. ‘Let’s get started.’


End file.
